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I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

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Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#371

Post by necovek »

Loughla wrote: post #216
charcircuit wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They dictate the capabilities that their device is offered and how the device is designed. It is up to the consumer to decide if that is worth the price of the device.

You are correct and I don't get OP's point. Don't want apple rules, don't use apple products. They are the business, they can do what they want with it, right?

Car makers cannot do anything they want and call it a car. The motivation there is safety, but it's long been argued that personal computing devices are today extension of our lives.

Even more comparable is postal rules: at least here, there are very explicit rules about opening someone else's mail, or even destroying it. Even if postal/courier services are businesses, they have to operate within the boundaries a society sets up for them.

And finally, you can take it even further: some "businesses" operate on the fringes of legality and sometimes illegally too (think loan shark operations, casinos, betting markets... but also "protection services" and similar).

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#372

Post by adi_kurian »

dang wrote: post #196
adi_kurian wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comically atrocious take.

Can you please not post shallow dismissals or call names in HN comments? We're trying for something else here. You're of course welcome to make your substantive points thoughtfully. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Apologies.

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#373

Post by shahzaibmushtaq »

The previous owner bought it for $8000 (quite less for domains like this) but here is the catch. This domain has a bad reputation and a lot of negativity since it has a long history.

Those who are in domain name business knows that because it affects the value of every expired/operational domain.

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#374

Post by eucyclos »

soared wrote: post #36
saghm wrote: post #29

> He said he would sell it to me for $40k. I offered $20k, which he refused but he said if I had any domain names generating ad revenue, we could do a deal of domains and cash. He said he would accept a lower amount if I paid in Bitcoin. > So we worked out a deal where I gave him $20k in Bitcoin and a domain that was making about $9k/year in ad revenue, and he gave me the domain friendster.com. Now I was the owner of…

You can check out similar sales on flippa.com - ad revenue does not last forever, even if it’s existed for years. And revenue is very much not profit, you could create a site and get $100/day in ad revenue tomorrow but it would cost you $200 in ad spend.

What does the spend go to, besides hosting costs?

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#375

Post by jgtrosh »

chr15m wrote: post #98

Here's what I would do. 1. Make it QR code scanning instead of tapping so it can be a PWA. 2. Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good). 3. Save yourself a lot of money by building it on top of the Nostr protocol. Run a relay yourself if…

After a quick search, there is an NFC web API, but with no general support https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_NFC_API

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#376

Post by arlattimore »

socalgal2 wrote: post #352
arlattimore wrote: post #319

Tapping phones seems very limiting. I don’t see most of my friends in person that often, different cities etc. I think a better alternative would be a phone number. You only give your number to friends, which aligns with the brand and product concept. Allows more of your friends to join via your address book, good for the app growth. Might also mean indirectly you can’t follow a non-personal page which also aligns to…

I hate phone numbers and hate given them out and I hate that I'm required to even have on in 2026. I'm reachable without one. The majority of my friends do not know my phone number. Only the really old ones from back before messaging apps with free calling

In my head, the new Friendster owner wants to drive some amount of true personal connection - hence the tapping.

The problem I see with not using a phone number as I described, is that you'd be connecting to any old social profile - could be Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

None of those are inherently personal, it'd open up Friendster to be not materially different to any other social network as those networks don't have the concept of a personal connection - they are just generic connections (some are personal, many/most are not).

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#377

Post by sgt »

danilocesar wrote: post #173
derwiki wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants to install an app?

I always avoid apps if I can. But yeah, that comment is a bit disconnected to majority of the population.

Granted, there's a lot of crap apps out there. But properly built apps are a world apart from your typical PWA's or web sites (or even really good ones)

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#378

Post by arlattimore »

chadpaulson wrote: post #333
arlattimore wrote: post #319

Tapping phones seems very limiting. I don’t see most of my friends in person that often, different cities etc. I think a better alternative would be a phone number. You only give your number to friends, which aligns with the brand and product concept. Allows more of your friends to join via your address book, good for the app growth. Might also mean indirectly you can’t follow a non-personal page which also aligns to…

I agree. There should be a hierarchy of intimacy, as it were, in order to initiate a friendship. * Tapping Phones * Confirming Phone Number * Confirming Email * Connected via Other Platforms (Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky, etc) As far as maintaining a friendship by tapping phones, again, I would make the friendships a constant and graph / rank intimacy by how often you tap phones as well as how connected you are to your…

I love the idea of hierarchy of intimacy, that is a great concept/phrase.

I'd make it so you could tap a phone, you know their phone number, you know their email. Importantly in my eyes, you shouldn't be able to navigate to a profile and just ask to connect as that'd mean you could do that to people you don't actually know (whereby knowing is inferred by you knowing some amount of their personal info such as tap, phone, email).

I'd stay away from your last option of 'other platforms', per my other reply below in that those platforms allow you to connect to anyone/anything. There is nothing in them that say this connection is inherently personal vs being generic.

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#379

Post by j3th9n »

__d wrote: post #361
vector_spaces wrote: post #126

The 'tapping phones' gimmick strikes me as something that sounds cute but will become an annoying chore that one should be able to opt out of. Particularly given various unintended side effects -- I personally wouldn't want my connection to my deceased best friend to be subject to some decay feature on a social network. And either way, it's not the core feature that will draw users to the site If you want to differen…

I have a heap of family and friends who live in a different country to me. I'd love an old school Friendster / early Facebook-style social medium where we could share posts, but the tapping mechanic makes this impractical for me.

Maybe pay them a visit.

Re: I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

#380

Post by redox99 »

razingeden wrote: post #80
alex1138 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, Facebook already has Fading Connections You can be married to each other and your posts won't show up on the other person's feed (there's a post on HN about this)

Xitter was kind of doing the same thing: I can’t see anything my mom posts, but I definitely have to see everything Elon’s mom does.

X actually kinda solved this. You have 3 tabs which solve all use cases IMO

- For you: Fully algorithmic, shows stuff even from people you don't follow

- Following (recently): Chronological posts from people you follow

- Following (popular): Algorithmic ordering just from people you follow

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