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I started a paper website business

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Re: I started a paper website business

#71
post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

I wish Stumble Upon still existed just so I could find the weird corners of the web again. This site and Reddit sort of fill that but also don't quite fit it at all.

Not to be a downer again but reddit is pretty much dead for this. It's turning into FB more and more every day with a lot of young kids and teenagers filling it with memes and begging for engagement and such. It's not much of an aggregator anymore and is turning into more of an actual social network now except they still have "anonymous" profiles

I guess it's what the people running it want but I find myself going there less and less every day and only look at a few curated subs

Re: I started a paper website business

#72
post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

Yeah, you're right. One counterexample definitely invalidates the entire argument.

Re: I started a paper website business

#73
post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

I wish Stumble Upon still existed just so I could find the weird corners of the web again. This site and Reddit sort of fill that but also don't quite fit it at all.

It's so bizarre to me that StumbleUpon came from the same mind as Uber (well one of the minds).

However true or untrue all of the political intrigue, journalistic threats, etc., it's just crazy to me that such an innocent corner of the web that I loved so much in the mid-late 2000s was sending death threats to journos in London not 8 years later.

Re: I started a paper website business

#74
post #65
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me remember that my primary way of finding new things on the web back in middle school was just typing educated guess urls in until I found something. Makes me wonder how interesting the web might be if I just started doing that again, and how boring it might have been if I'd just had a working search engine back then. Then again I also seem to remember getting bored enough with the web to only spend an ho…

If you did that now you'll run into sites with no content but a banner at the top with contact details so you can buy the domain.

or much much worse. NSFW klaxon alarms and visits from HR for viewing this content at work type situations.

Re: I started a paper website business

#76
post #21

where is your business based and have you registered an LLC? do you make a separate LLC for each project? how much did it cost to launch the business and what does is cost to keep running (lawyers/paperwork/admin)? i'm scared of starting my own tiny projects, because of all the bureaucracy involved to even get started

I have a number of smaller businesses/products that are part of one business entity: - IT Consulting practice - Eletronic device business (sells a single product via internet/mail order) - YouTube channel/blog - Fledgling SAS product that's not yet launched (consumes money, not makes it)

I live in the US. To incorporate here, you file paperwork with your state. You don't need a lawyer, just send in the filing fee(s) with the completed paperwork. If I remember correctly, fees were somewhere around $100-$200. I have an accountant do my corporate taxes. He charges me $400. I file the sales tax paperwork myself on my state's web site. It's basically: How much do you owe us? And then you pay it. Most eCommerce storefronts keep track of the sales-tax stuff for you so it's easy.

Re: I started a paper website business

#77
post #65
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me remember that my primary way of finding new things on the web back in middle school was just typing educated guess urls in until I found something. Makes me wonder how interesting the web might be if I just started doing that again, and how boring it might have been if I'd just had a working search engine back then. Then again I also seem to remember getting bored enough with the web to only spend an ho…

If you did that now you'll run into sites with no content but a banner at the top with contact details so you can buy the domain.

Thats a good point, I remember a bit of this back in the day but not sure how common it was. One my best friend and I still joke about to this day was tree.com, I seem to remember it wasn't even for sale, just a squat for squats sake or something. Good times.

Re: I started a paper website business

#78
post #20
post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

We remember the fun stuff, but you had to look for it even back in the day.

"Back in my day," we had to look for fun compared to the expectation that fun will be delivered to you at your beck and call. How times have changed. When you grow up with something, it's just accepted as normal. You have to have known a time without it to truly get the difference.

Re: I started a paper website business

#79
post #70

It feels less like a paper website business and more just like a traditional website builder except with some OCR to turn notebook pages into web pages. Like, you've still got to edit the page to add links, images, colours, etc. In fact, that seems like the most complicated part. It's a fun gimmick and a nice selling point. But someone will be able to use this idea for Wordpress/Wix/Squarespace plugin. Would be surpr…

Wouldn't be HN without the "you can build this trivially" [ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 ] response.

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