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I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

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Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#71

"Anyway, I always hated manual labor and decided to make a little tool to help me scrape the posts of my competitors and publish them to my group on a regular basis.” Other things you must hate: morality and ethics.

I don't see why you have to attack the article's author. If you disagree with what he does, it might actually be interesting to read why. Instead you attack him from a moral high ground you don't even hold, assuming he is doing something immoral or unethical when he simply disagrees with your values.

Someone who disagrees with your values isn't necessarily immoral or unethical just because they disagree with you.

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#73

Totally lost here. What service is this SaaS actually selling? What are people paying money for?

I'm equally lost. I can't tell what exactly the service is offering for sale or the point of it. Usually when I see these low sales service posts (small side projects), I expect to see something clever or unique, that's the only reason to pay attention to something yielding a small amount of sales. If you're going to tell me all you did was scrape and clone with a routine LAMP setup, I don't get the point of the post…

AFAIK, the point is that you can make money just by scraping and cloning using a routine LAMP setup.

I found that interesting just by virtue of the idea that people would pay just to get more useless "content" for their groups.

I suppose it's just automating a curated list.

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#74

TL;DR "I scrape content from others and sell them without any credit to or rewards for the original creators" AFAICS.

Guys, 99.9% of posts in VK.com - it's not a real content. It's more like repost of repost of repost of repost... They are just something like photo of cute cat with funny description below. And this is actually not copyrighted content. So all groups just copy content from each another. Infinite carousel of content. This service is 100% clean from side of morality

Lol, "Infinite carousel of content."

It took millions of years of evolution to get to this point... An infinite carousel of cute cats with captions.

I love it!

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#75

"Anyway, I always hated manual labor and decided to make a little tool to help me scrape the posts of my competitors and publish them to my group on a regular basis.” Other things you must hate: morality and ethics.

I don't think this is the case. You're imposing Western values on a Russian offering services in Russia, on a Russian platform.

If you haven't used VK before, I strongly suggest you do so. Have a look at the Music and Video sections for a bit of an idea of Russian appreciation for copyright.

And I don't really blame them for this. Do you remember the time when copying tapes/DVDs was very new and pretty much everyone was doing it? Do you remember those bootleg DVDs from Asia? Few people cared, there was little to no publicity about how it was bad and "stealing" for a good few years. Then came the ads on DVDs and in cinemas about how it was stealing, articles in the news about how it was hurting industry and such. In the west we were taught that copyright was good and the impact it had on the content creators. In Russia they were not.

They just don't think about it the same way we do and you can't make assumptions about their character for that any more than they can make assumptions about Americans for the things that are different in American culture.

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#76
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tool OP made is neither technically challenging or interesting. The story is about what the tool was for, which is certainly not one small piece. These types of stories are great and motivational, but not when it promotes people who are looking for inspiration to turn to stealing content and selling access to it. Just because this kind of stuff is common in other countries or cultures doesn't change my opinion ab…

By stealing do you mean copying? What is the actual harm caused by social media marketing norms on VK? Do you feel like Indians making generic copies of western cancer drugs is also wrong? Most importantly, what kind of paragon of morality are you to pass such strident judgment on such a pedestrian issue? Are you some super eco-conscious, vegetarian, volunteer worker who fights to stop the various unsavory things you…

Could you maybe explain how you compare copying a cancer drug to automatically putting your own watermark on other people's funny images?

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#77
post #76
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By stealing do you mean copying? What is the actual harm caused by social media marketing norms on VK? Do you feel like Indians making generic copies of western cancer drugs is also wrong? Most importantly, what kind of paragon of morality are you to pass such strident judgment on such a pedestrian issue? Are you some super eco-conscious, vegetarian, volunteer worker who fights to stop the various unsavory things you…

Could you maybe explain how you compare copying a cancer drug to automatically putting your own watermark on other people's funny images?

Okay, kazga.

Both violate international IP treaties and both are absolutely normal behavior to many millions of people. Not amoral psychopaths for the most part, just normal people.

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#79
post #77
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you maybe explain how you compare copying a cancer drug to automatically putting your own watermark on other people's funny images?

Okay, kazga. Both violate international IP treaties and both are absolutely normal behavior to many millions of people. Not amoral psychopaths for the most part, just normal people.

False. In Europe, you can IP the industrial process of making the drug, not the drug itself.

Re: I used LAMP to make a SaaS app with $3700/month profit

#80
post #46

Please don't listen to the naysayers here. You saw an opportunity and acted on it. The problem of copyright here is of Facebook itself, they deliberately allow this to happen to increase their engagement numbers. It is well-documented at many places.

The OP was on VK, a Russian platform where full downloads of copyrighted movies and songs were available until very recently (much as was the case in China with Baidu and Youku/Tudou). Actually I think Baidu still offers copyrighted MP3s and PDFs and charges for it. It's true that FB (and previously YouTube) played fast and loose with US copyright laws, but it doesn't even come close to what is standard in Russia or…

VK still offers almost any MP3 you can imagine, slightly less than than Movies and PDFs, and much more than that adult video content. At same time 90% of Russia using VK. You don't need to imagine that, it is reality.
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