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Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

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Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#201

Post by Matsta »

kami8845 wrote: post #162
Matsta wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you would be surprised. The biggest advertiser in the CPA industry over the last few years closed their doors a couple of months ago. And now the EPC (earning's per click) are about 20% of what they used to be, so the majority of CPA networks are either going broke or shutting down for good. I imagine that the majority of them will be closing their doors this year as well which is kind of sad. As of now, not…

Very interesting. Can you expand on that? I actually got out of the CPA industry around April 2012, when it stilled seemed to go well (though not as well as in the days of ringtone offers / acai and so forth)

Well I can say that the biggest CPA advertiser had a call centre which was there biggest way to earn back the commission they paid us to get us leads. Also these guys had big budgets, unlike all the other advertisers, so when there were days when a certain offer would earn more then 100k they would be happy to pay. I'm guessing the other networks didn't have enough liquid assets to pay back publishers on time (we would get paid every Tuesday usually). Also the main network wasn't fussy where the traffic came from, as where every other network wants organic traffic (which is basically impossible anyway), so they would usually cut you off as soon as you started sending social media traffic, email traffic, sms traffic etc.

But I primarily did email submit offers, they would convert as soon as someone put in their email so we would usually get conversion rates of 30-60% which was pretty dang good.

But yea acai/ringtone got wiped out when the FTC stepped in over all the 'legitimate' reviews and credit card companies got strict on rebilling (which was the only reason they made money).

The whole industry is struggling though, most people are now trying to make money from selling SEO services or reselling Facebook Fans and Youtube Views (which Google nuked the other day).

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#202

Post by aegiso »

I cling to the hope that there's something I'm not seeing here, but I fear that might not be the case.

All I see is a business model that on top of being reprehensible, is completely out of whack with the times, and even if successful promises to cannibalize itself out of existence by destroying any remnant of faith that Windows user still have in the Wild West of freely downloadable native Windows apps.

Please, let not today be remembered as the day that YC jumped the shark.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#203

Post by veidr »

evolve2k wrote: post #167
TeMPOraL wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNet/Download.com is not reputable. It's malware distributor. The best rule of thumb is: if it looks shady, don't go there ever again. Another: every good program has an author, and this author has a valid, non-malware-installing link on his/her website.

If this is true then I imagine there is space for a trustworthy curated library which can replace CNET.

On OS X, there is MacUpdate. Not curated, but user-unfettered. There used to be another very similar one, called VersionTracker, which was much more popular... and then it was acquired by CNET. And everybody gradually stopped using it. There's probably some kind of lesson hiding in there somewhere...

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#204

Post by jacquesm »

jbk wrote: post #49

I can speak quite a bit about this "industry": We (VLC) receive 1 of those offers per day. They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous. They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actu…

> They also have deals with download.com/softopedia/softonic to change/rewrap your installer, without your agreement, often violating your license; or they give back money to those websites, so they are ranked higher than normal other downloads.

I can confirm this, it's the reason we stopped having a download altogether even though it offered features that were hard to do without a download.

Using software I wrote as a vector to spread malware is really beyond the pale.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#205

Post by frogpelt »

smacktoward wrote: post #196
scrumper wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the assumed knowledge required to understand the procedure under Archlinux is vast compared to that under Windows. Here are the concepts you need to know in order to do the work under Archlinux: 0. How to load your terminal program 1. The command line 2. Permissions/root 3. Package managers in general 4. pacman in particular (what, it's not the game?) 5. Command line switches 6. Piping 7. grep 8. What "looks…

Your overall point is correct, but your "under Windows" example is oversimplified. The Windows user still needs to know: 1) What an "installer" is 2) Where on the filesystem it goes when it's downloaded 3) How to navigate to that location in Explorer 4) That double-clicking the installer runs it etc. Some of these are things that you can learn from general Windows usage, but then the same could be said of several of…

Parent's example was Arch Linux, not Ubuntu. And it was oversimplified.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#206

Post by jiggy2011 »

dkuntz2 wrote: post #191
jiggy2011 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what type of software you are talking about. For copyright protected proprietary software (which Canonical want people to develop for their OS) there may be legal protections which prevent it from being rebundled outside of torrent sites (which have their own risks). #2 assumes a savvy enough userbase.

Legal protections against rebundling aptitude? Something released under the GPL? Which means everyone has all of the ability to easily change the sucker. If you're packaging something as a deb, you can potentially bundle other things, but at the same time, because a deb is a glorified tar.gz, someone can just provide information on how to get rid of the offending thing. Or, if you're using Arch, the AUR maintainer ju…

I don't mean aptitude itself.

I mean , if you are bundling your own software for Ubuntu you get to distribute it however you like. If somebody else decides to redistribute it minus the crapware then you can potentially sue them.

So you can say "the only legal way to get my software is to download this file which is bundled with InstallMonetizerForUbuntu".

Whether it is bundled as a .tar.gz or a .deb and whether it comes from a random website or the Ubuntu software store is largely irrelevant to this point.

Sure, people will create programs and instructions on how to get the crapware off your system but this is basically the same state as now exists for Windows with various "cleaner" programs, some of which install even more shit.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#207

Post by smacktoward »

archangel_one wrote: post #58
kybernetyk wrote: post #24

The crapware situation on Windows is horrible. I'm a Mac/Linux user but from time to time I have to power up my Windows VM. A few days ago I wanted to install the Partition Magic trial on my Win XP VM. Having left Windows around 2005 I figured that typing "Partition Magic Win XP download" in Google would be helpful. I got a handful of "reputable" download sources like CNet and the like. I went there and was bombarded…

Yes, I've run afoul of the "download button" adverts before. I'm not surprised to see them on torrent sites etc, but it amazes me that some supposedly reputable download sites would allow such things.

Seriously. Take a look at the official site for the excellent open-source Windows graphics editor Paint.NET, for instance:

http://www.getpaint.net/

Now tell me where you are supposed to click to download the actual application. It confuses me, and I'm an experienced user who knows to look out for these sorts of things. I have no idea how normal people ever find the damn thing.

My question is: whose fault is this? Is it Paint.NET's, for allowing the ads onto their site? Or is it the ad network's (Google, in this case), for accepting the ads into their network?

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#208

Post by bcoates »

smacktoward wrote: post #196
scrumper wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the assumed knowledge required to understand the procedure under Archlinux is vast compared to that under Windows. Here are the concepts you need to know in order to do the work under Archlinux: 0. How to load your terminal program 1. The command line 2. Permissions/root 3. Package managers in general 4. pacman in particular (what, it's not the game?) 5. Command line switches 6. Piping 7. grep 8. What "looks…

Your overall point is correct, but your "under Windows" example is oversimplified. The Windows user still needs to know: 1) What an "installer" is 2) Where on the filesystem it goes when it's downloaded 3) How to navigate to that location in Explorer 4) That double-clicking the installer runs it etc. Some of these are things that you can learn from general Windows usage, but then the same could be said of several of…

You don't need to know anything except how to confirm a dialog. On IE, you press the download link and about 5 warning dialogs later the software is running. No navigation or double-clicks involved.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#210

Post by minimax »

patio11 wrote: post #152

So when earlier it was mentioned, I assumed "They have to have a different angle on this; they're a YC company." And seeing a strong thread title and no evidence for it other than "The industry they're in is ridiculously seedy", I thought maybe HN was in rush to judgement mode. So I thought I'd try, you know, installing something. Make your own call: http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/its-not-a...

It looks like Install Monetizer was previously known (or is also known?) as Optilly.

http://optilly.com/

http://www.installmonetizer.com/

Maybe they "pivoted" from a clever take on ad campaign management to toolbars as a way to increase revenues?

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