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Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#31

My friend Dmytro[0] has been running a screenshot API called ScreenshotOne[1]. He's been building it solo and has reached $20K MRR recently. [0]: https://x.com/DmytroKrasun [1]: https://screenshotone.com

holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time

Browserless can do this for free:

docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time

Browserless can do this for free: docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

I cant edit the above post but follow that command with a request for a screenshot like so:

    curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/screenshot \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}' \
  --output screenshot.png

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time

Browserless can do this for free: docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

Browserless is not free for commercial use.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#34

I know of a guy, but his scenario was quite unique. I was working for an energy company who shall remain nameless, but who's internal IT was a tangle of external consultants milking the place for millions, and ineffective/underserved full time staff who couldn't run a query on a database without a change control committee of consultants milking them for yet more cash. Anyway, this guy was the go to guy for gas custom…

Sounds like extortion with extra steps? Maybe there’s a more charitable way to tell the story.

Without debating whether it’s ethical, it doesn’t sound like extortion. It sounds like taking advantage of dysfunctional decision making in an organization.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#35

On the same topic: does anyone have an API concept that they wish existed and that they'd be willing to pay for?

Sure, but the API itself is the easy part, especially with LLM help. The problem is the data source is a total trash fire, so in order for it to be worth it the API cost would either be exorbitant or not worth it.

You know what's pretty good at cleaning up data that's a total trash fire? _More_ LLM. :-)

I run a web service whose primary purpose is cleaning up messy, SEO-enshittified data from Google, eBay, etc. After years of fine-tuning my own heuristics, I threw a super-cheap LLM at it and it massively out-performed my custom code. It's slower, but the results are well worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time

Browserless can do this for free: docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

Sounds like this does a lot more than simply take a screenshot. It mentions removing cookie banners, ads, etc. which is an always moving target.

If you have one, very narrow specific use case, then maybe that’s not so bad. But sounds like a huge pain if you need that for any arbitrary site.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time

Browserless can do this for free: docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

> instead of managing browser clusters, and handling all the corner cases

The cost with running a docker container is you have to manage that container. You’re paying with dev time not money.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#38

My friend Dmytro[0] has been running a screenshot API called ScreenshotOne[1]. He's been building it solo and has reached $20K MRR recently. [0]: https://x.com/DmytroKrasun [1]: https://screenshotone.com

This is awesome. wondering how would a company like this build a user base? Any ideas / speculation would be appreciated!

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#39

On the same topic: does anyone have an API concept that they wish existed and that they'd be willing to pay for?

For customer projects I am happily using paid "text to speech" APIs from several vendors. Privately, I would like to use an API, which gets my Lego bricks inventory and returns all sets which I could build. Further it should show me sets, which I almost can build and show me missing pieces. Also e.g. it should show me sets with slight color differences, e.g. I have bricks in yellow but originally it requires orange.…

Sounds a lot like rebrickable. I'm not sure if they have an API though
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