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I made $100K from a dick joke

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Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#111

Post by nosioptar »

rgovostes wrote: post #94
oaththrowaway wrote: post #19

I sold a laptop on eBay once long, long ago. Someone did the "Buy it now" option but never paid. I'm trying to remember the exact situation (probably more than 10 years ago), but I had exchanged messages with him several times and he always had an excuse to not pay. Then I noticed he was selling the exact same model of laptop so it was easy for me to realize that he had just "bought" my laptop to remove the listing s…

Just remember eBay has almost no way to report scam listings, hacked seller accounts, obviously fraudulent buyers, etc. They don’t want to clean up their act. Caveat emptor. Two executives were recently imprisoned over harassing a journalist, to give you an idea of the corporate culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal

EBay doesn't care about fraud unless they think you're going to file a charge back with your card issuer, then they're pretty quickto protect their bottom line.

I do know for a fact that eBay can kick a seller off very quickly though. I bought a NES shaped raspberry pi a few years back as a gift. The day I got the item, I went to leave the seller glowing feedback, only to find his account was axed (he included NES roms on the SD card).

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#112

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

probably_wrong wrote: post #21

I don't have a great opinion of marketing in general and therefore I'm often unconvinced with arguments like "marketing is about fulfilling a customer's needs" or "adding efficiency to the market". Therefore I feel vindicated when a moderately-upvoted post says the quiet part out loud, namely, "Yeah, we made a fake post and just lied to everyone on the internet. I'm not sorry, because not only was it popular - it bec…

>I'm often unconvinced with arguments like "marketing is about fulfilling a customer's needs" or "adding efficiency to the market".

This product is actually an ideal case for marketing, because most people weren't aware that a product like this existed. The best ads notify you about something you genuinely want to buy.

What you're really complaining about is astroturfing, not marketing.

The more dubious sort of marketing is Coca-Cola style marketing, where people already know that the product exists, and the ad just makes them feel vaguely good about it. But I suspect even this sort of marketing is surprisingly beneficial, because it incentivizes companies to make quality products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578277

My argument for Coca-Cola style brand marketing would go something like:

It's very silly to invest $billions in brand awareness and building market share, if your product is junk and customers will eventually find out. Marketing spend could be seen as the "peacock's tail" of the business world -- a credible signal that the company stands by their product.

If I see an ad for Acme Corp, it's statistical evidence that Acme won an auction for that slot against other players in its industry. Acme won the auction because it was able to bid more. It was able to bid more because it has better lifetime value per customer, i.e. it does a better job of satisfying customer needs.

There are a lot of old consumer brands, and there are a lot of brands known for junk, but there aren't a lot of old consumer brands that are known for junk.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#113

Post by harrall »

kgilpin wrote: post #39
anonu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant believe ebay hasnt been disrupted yet...

In my kids’ generation (college aged) they all use Facebook Marketplace.

eBay and Facebook Marketplace don’t really compete. FB is better for normal fungible items. eBay is better for specialty stuff. Don’t forget that you have to pay to list and usually have to ship on eBay. It’s two totally different vibes.

If I wanted to sell a Dewalt angle grinder, I would go to Facebook first.

If I wanted to sell a Sony E-mount camera lens, I would go to eBay first.

Most used things I buy make more sense on Facebook. Most people I know use Facebook because they are usually looking for regular things.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#114

Post by djeastm »

edanm wrote: post #68
probably_wrong wrote: post #21

I don't have a great opinion of marketing in general and therefore I'm often unconvinced with arguments like "marketing is about fulfilling a customer's needs" or "adding efficiency to the market". Therefore I feel vindicated when a moderately-upvoted post says the quiet part out loud, namely, "Yeah, we made a fake post and just lied to everyone on the internet. I'm not sorry, because not only was it popular - it bec…

> I don't have a great opinion of marketing in general and therefore I'm often unconvinced with arguments like "marketing is about fulfilling a customer's needs" or "adding efficiency to the market". I mean, on some level, everything is marketing. People don't like marketing when it's fraudulent and morally suspect, which of course makes sense - I don't like tech when it's morally suspect, either! But literally every…

Making something available to purchase is all I want from marketers, but then the other 99% of marketers want to make money too so it's just a game of who can lie most convincingly

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#115

Post by AndyKelley »

> Yeah, we made a fake post and just lied to everyone on the internet. I'm not sorry, because not only was it popular - it became the top post of the day.

this is why we need better societal guardrails in place against lies... people will just do this kind of crap otherwise. I mean look at politics right now, it's a complete disaster in terms of information accuracy.

lies are too powerful to be (un)regulated by the free market.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#116

Post by nosioptar »

Beijinger wrote: post #107
segmondy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ebay is still useful for obscure stuff. if you want to buy used servers, GPU, electronics, car parts, etc. I don't think ebay and FB MP really overlapped, MP ate craigslist. The closest thing to eating ebay is Aliexpress.

I found ebay more reliable, interesting and smoother than Amazon. Amazon screwed me over for 40 USD now they are nagging that I should sign up for "Prime" (I ordered a bunch of stuff, maybe 800 USD. They decided the order is fraudulent, and canceled it, without ever telling me. When I moved into my new place, there was nothing. No sheets, no nothing from Amazon. That this order was "canceled" without any email seemed…

Last time I ordered from amazon, I repeatedly declined prime. My bank called me the next day about a suspicious charge for a year of prime. I had to cancel my card and get a new one. The banker told me they'd had dozens of similar problems where amazon was charging people for stuff they never ordered.

When I got the package a few days later, the $150+ set of cello strings I ordered, sold and shipped by amazon, were counterfeits (and damaged due to improper packing, not that it mattered). I had to do a charge back to get my money back.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#117

Post by Beijinger »

nosioptar wrote: post #116
Beijinger wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found ebay more reliable, interesting and smoother than Amazon. Amazon screwed me over for 40 USD now they are nagging that I should sign up for "Prime" (I ordered a bunch of stuff, maybe 800 USD. They decided the order is fraudulent, and canceled it, without ever telling me. When I moved into my new place, there was nothing. No sheets, no nothing from Amazon. That this order was "canceled" without any email seemed…

Last time I ordered from amazon, I repeatedly declined prime. My bank called me the next day about a suspicious charge for a year of prime. I had to cancel my card and get a new one. The banker told me they'd had dozens of similar problems where amazon was charging people for stuff they never ordered. When I got the package a few days later, the $150+ set of cello strings I ordered, sold and shipped by amazon, were c…

Please be understanding. Bezos needs the money!

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#118

Post by giarc »

nickjj wrote: post #27

That reminds me of the toilet paper calculator during peak covid. He put up a site in about half an hour and it ended up getting coverage on TV which led to ~10 million visitors and it making $5,000 a day in ads for a while. The core logic of the app is 6 lines of JavaScript to take a few inputs and do basic math on them. I ended up chatting with the creator on how he built and hosted it back in 2020: https://running…

Listened today. Nice work, I really like these kind of stories (small time internet success stories). I don't know if your podcast has others, as it seems like you're mostly focused on the tech stack of sites. Some of my favourite HN posts are the common "What's your tech side hustle?" posts. I love hearing the stories of people making a bit of side cash on small little sites. Some examples I can think of (however, both are much bigger now) is the Vileda Onions guy, bingo card creator and the wedding table name tag site.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#119

Post by giarc »

bashmelek wrote: post #78
_1tem wrote: post #9

Sometimes I think about the years of hard work that I put into building a SaaS business and wondered whether I should've just done something silly like this instead.

It is still inspiring for someone like me who wouldn’t even know where to start for something like this—-that is can be done by an individual nobody.The author knew a few important things, but more, did their research, asked questions, and pushed forward. I myself would love to move beyond web apps to a physical product.

>did their research, asked questions, and pushed forward

I think the real lesson is they "just started".

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#120

Post by doublepg23 »

anonu wrote: post #32
oaththrowaway wrote: post #19

I sold a laptop on eBay once long, long ago. Someone did the "Buy it now" option but never paid. I'm trying to remember the exact situation (probably more than 10 years ago), but I had exchanged messages with him several times and he always had an excuse to not pay. Then I noticed he was selling the exact same model of laptop so it was easy for me to realize that he had just "bought" my laptop to remove the listing s…

I cant believe ebay hasnt been disrupted yet...

I quite like places like /r/HardwareSwap or the like.
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