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Have a fucking website

otherstrangeness.com

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Re: Have a fucking website

#411

Post by [deleted] »

joe_mamba wrote: post #407
threatofrain wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t people just ask for simpler, less custom, prebuilt websites? If you want a custom app then you can always create spaghetti logic, but does a restaurant or small accounting firm really need that?

>but does a restaurant or small accounting firm really need that? Where I live in my part of Europe, most small restaurants, cafes, bakeries etc. only use a Facebook page and their Google maps entry to share their menu, phone number and interact with the customer base. They have no use to spend time and money owning and maintain a website, plus the advantage of even grandmas knowing how to update a Facebook page vers…

[deleted]

Re: Have a fucking website

#412

Post by ArlenBales »

oflannabhra wrote: post #393
Arainach wrote: post #14

Someone wrote and deleted a comment saying > I don't get it. LLMs are supposed to have 100% bridged this gap from "normie" to "DIY website." What's missing? This is an all too common thought process among technologists, so: Where to even start? Well, let's start that every single "AI" company is massively overhyping everything to try to avoid any unfortunate realizations about the emperor's clothes regarding their Ca…

I know a twelve year old kid who is proactively using LLMs to build websites for lawn-mowing businesses, calling them up, asking them if they want it for $200, and closing deals in seconds. I know it sounds far-fetched, but he does all the work up-front before even contacting them, using logos and info from Facebook or Google. He's cleared several thousand dollars so far. I get that the owners aren't going to be the…

Once he creates the website, does he also host it and handle the billing for his clients? Is he using a website builder like Square space or hosting on AWS?

The hurdle is more than just building the site, a lot of really small non-technical businesses don't want the trouble of handling the billing and maintenance of the site.

Re: Have a fucking website

#413

Post by shimman »

chihuahua wrote: post #404
I-M-S wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the four designs that I saw as examples are not attractive enough. Especially coming from the editor's builder, they should make a stronger showcase.

The examples look fine to me. Potential customers want to see the menu (or product range or similar), location, a couple of pictures. It's supposed to give useful and necessary information. The intended purpose is: Before: your cafe does not have a website. After: your cafe has a simple website where people can see the menu, hours, and location. This tool accomplishes that, and looks fine. It's not supposed to give t…

Why use this tool that looks vibe coded when you can also use wix (which sadly also looks vibe coded nowadays)?

Re: Have a fucking website

#414

Post by alexpotato »

threatofrain wrote: post #388
ehnto wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often turn to the saying "Rich people don't talk to robots". Time poor people want things done for them not by them. The agency of action needs to be delegated. Just because Flight Centre can automatically line up your flights for you, doesn't mean they want to. Time poor people still don't have time to go through that nor do they want to. They ask their assistant to do it, their assistant knows them well and fills…

Why can’t people just ask for simpler, less custom, prebuilt websites? If you want a custom app then you can always create spaghetti logic, but does a restaurant or small accounting firm really need that?

> Why can’t people just ask for simpler, less custom, prebuilt websites?

They already do.

e.g. our landscaper's website is something like:

bobslandscaping.landscaper.com

It handles the invoices and hosts his basic contact information etc. Sounds like a great business to be in to be the hosting company for this.

Re: Have a fucking website

#415

Post by BeetleB »

twodave wrote: post #317

For some things I get this. Restaurants? Yes. But other things? Landscaping? Electricians? Plumbers? I’d much rather speak on the phone with someone who is going to come on my property and do work. I could care less if they have a website because that’s just marketing for them. I source almost 100% of these types of workers via referral from friends/family.

> Yes. But other things? Landscaping? Electricians? Plumbers?

Plumbers and electricians: Maybe not. But lots of other house repairs stuff: Yes.

Things I want to see:

Geographical coverage area: Some are across town and are not willing to come to my property. Others are.

Services rendered: There job title may be very generic, but it often turns out they do only certain types of work.

Minimum fees: Some only do jobs that cost, say, $1000 or more. If my work is small, I shouldn't bother calling them.

> I’d much rather speak on the phone with someone who is going to come on my property and do work

I do so as well, but they rarely pick up the phone. You call them, leave a voicemail, and pray they'll call you back at a time you can pick up. About 50% of them never call back. So every time I need some repairs/work done on the house, I have to get 10 "leads", and call them, leave a voicemail, and a few days later repeat the process because they either didn't call back, or called and said they don't do that type of work.

If I can pre-filter those out based on basic stuff on their website, it'd be great.

Re: Have a fucking website

#416

Post by mlrtime »

latexr wrote: post #286
mlrtime wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't even find a phone #? How about calling and asking? How do you know this place even exists without any information? This is the opposite of old man yelling at clouds, it's young people complaining about the dumbest shit. If the article writer is reading this, I feel the opposite. No, I don't want 1000 different websites. I like to use consolidated feeds. No More Websites!

There used to be a particular restaurant I ordered from. It was a real restaurant, not a ghost kitchen. It was listed on Uber Eats and similar, but you could also order from them, which was significantly cheaper. We used to have an image of the menu and the phone number but eventually lost it. Because the restaurant was only listed on Facebook, none of us have a Facebook account, and Facebook aggressively tries to ke…

If they don't have any of that, how do you think they will have a website? This is a solution looking for a problem.

Re: Have a fucking website

#417

Post by mlrtime »

LatencyKills wrote: post #277
mlrtime wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't even find a phone #? How about calling and asking? How do you know this place even exists without any information? This is the opposite of old man yelling at clouds, it's young people complaining about the dumbest shit. If the article writer is reading this, I feel the opposite. No, I don't want 1000 different websites. I like to use consolidated feeds. No More Websites!

> How do you know this place even exists without any information? You want to find an antique book store in another state. How do you find it? You search the web. And what information bubbles to the top of the search results? Answer: businesses with websites. If you are a business owner, you will lose customers without a website, because that is how most people will find you. You might not like it... but that is the…

I don't think so, for the majority of the world (not HN), the first hit will be google maps or equivalent if there is no website. It works fine.

A website also works, I'm not anti-website. But the tone of the article is absurd IMO.

Re: Have a fucking website

#418

Post by mlrtime »

LatencyKills wrote: post #372
abustamam wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm looking for a physical place I usually just look at Google maps. "Minneapolis antique bookstores." I'll look at pics, see if the vibe is cool, etc. Relying on Google SEO is a recipe for disaster in my experience because there's no guarantee that the bookstore is even in or near Minneapolis. Other people probably browse the web differently though. I honestly would not expect an antique bookstore to have a websi…

> If I'm looking for a physical place I usually just look at Google maps. Ah yes... I'm sure that is what 99% of people do. /s You don't like reality... and that's fine. You do you. But, most businesses do need a web presence if they want be be discovered by the majority of potential customers.

They actually don't. Especially one that doesn't do any e-commerce.

Re: Have a fucking website

#419

Post by duskdozer »

lleu wrote: post #300
janalsncm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, setting up a website is a pain. But in reality there’s only a handful of things people care about for your restaurant: what, when, and where. Put up your menu, put up your hours, and put up your location. And a phone number.

I specifically tracked this problem and built https://lleu.site to try and get businesses in my city off of social media. Built a menu editor. Has a built in blog and image galleries. Events calendar and event posts. Has a single page simple mode and multi page editor. Contact form with message intake and forwarding. Easy UI that I don’t change underfoot every quarter so its consistent. Works on mobile and low powere…

I wouldn't have the highest confidence in the results if I open up the homepage and my fans rev up tbh.

Re: Have a fucking website

#420

Post by ArlenBales »

madaxe_again wrote: post #284
brap wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t something like Wix take care of all of this?

Yes. It’s also idiot-proof enough that I sent a tech illiterate estate agent friend there with instructions to ask ChatGPT if he had any questions. He was up and running, with property listings, three days later. Honestly, this is a solved problem - the actual problem, if you talk to folks who maintain only a FB page, is that they don’t want to pay.

It's not that they don't want to pay, but they don't want to pay outrageously. Squarespace, etc. are stupid expensive for most websites. $5/mo is the limit for a lot of businesses, especially when they can't tell if having a website will even improve their traffic over just having a social media page.

The administration and billing side can also be confusing for a lot of non-technical business owners.

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