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I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain

by majani 8y ago

I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doing something like this?

whack 8y ago
"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. This is often incompatible with letting the service continue running as usual. For example, the article mentions that the StumbleUpon cofounder is currently working on Mix, and all StumbleUpon accounts will be migrated over to Mix. Most likely, they want to harvest whatever is remaining of StumbleUpon's userbase/reputation, to help grow Mix instead. This will be much harder to do, if StumbleUpon continues operating and slowly degrading.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  >"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. Even sites that are completely healthy and thriving sometimes disappear just because someone drives a dumptruck full of cash into the lobby. I once turned down a spammer who wanted to buy one of my site's e-mail lists (very targeted, high-value). When I turned him down, he approached my partners and tried to buy the whole site. He told them he was going to shut the site down and just use the e-mail list.
- majani 8y ago
  Profit is not usually the motive in a fire sale. The motive is to salvage something small from a bad situation. Doing good is a competitive proposition if you look at it that way
- excitom 8y ago
  Example: The zombie-esque http://www.excite.com/ http://www.excite.com/
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    Holy fuck how is this still around?! edit: never mind. Most of the links are dead and half of it doesn't work. Kinda makes me think of this old Jurassic Park website that's still alive: http://www.lost-world.com/Lost_World02/hammondsoffice.html http://www.lost-world.com/Lost_World02/hammondsoffice.html
weltstub 8y ago
It's a great idea, but probably not practical. Turning over ssh keys, data, and legal ownership would be labor intensive and probably expose the current owners to risk.
tacostakohashi 8y ago
I was once involved with a somewhat popular social network that was closing down, and some people in the user community would say this. It's not really practical, as there are lots of operating costs for hardware, bandwidth, looking after the domain names, DNS, security issues, DOS attacks, dealing with subpoenas from law enforcement, DMCA takedown notices, getting rid of illegal material, the list goes on. This work is difficult to do well, it's not the kind of thing that "developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work" can actually do successfully. The good developers in those sorts of countries are not doing busy work, they're starting their own social networks or migrating or doing the other things that good developers do.
- majani 8y ago
  Isn't the largest cost of most online business the staff? This cost would reduce 10x if given to third world devs and surely that will put most of these flailing websites in the black
sodafountan 8y ago
I think it's a fantastic idea, I'm not aware of any trusts/charities like it but I'm sure there's many older techies and rich .com entrepreneurs who'd be willing to donate something small.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by majani 8y ago

whack 8y ago

"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. This is often incompatible with letting the service continue running as usual. For example, the article mentions that the StumbleUpon cofounder is currently working on Mix, and all StumbleUpon accounts will be migrated over to Mix. Most likely, they want to harvest whatever is remaining of StumbleUpon's userbase/reputation, to help grow Mix instead. This will be much harder to do, if StumbleUpon continues operating and slowly degrading.

reaperducer 8y ago
>"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. Even sites that are completely healthy and thriving sometimes disappear just because someone drives a dumptruck full of cash into the lobby. I once turned down a spammer who wanted to buy one of my site's e-mail lists (very targeted, high-value). When I turned him down, he approached my partners and tried to buy the whole site. He told them he was going to shut the site down and just use the e-mail list.
majani 8y ago
Profit is not usually the motive in a fire sale. The motive is to salvage something small from a bad situation. Doing good is a competitive proposition if you look at it that way
excitom 8y ago
Example: The zombie-esque http://www.excite.com/ http://www.excite.com/
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Holy fuck how is this still around?! edit: never mind. Most of the links are dead and half of it doesn't work. Kinda makes me think of this old Jurassic Park website that's still alive: http://www.lost-world.com/Lost_World02/hammondsoffice.html http://www.lost-world.com/Lost_World02/hammondsoffice.html

weltstub 8y ago

It's a great idea, but probably not practical. Turning over ssh keys, data, and legal ownership would be labor intensive and probably expose the current owners to risk.

tacostakohashi 8y ago

I was once involved with a somewhat popular social network that was closing down, and some people in the user community would say this. It's not really practical, as there are lots of operating costs for hardware, bandwidth, looking after the domain names, DNS, security issues, DOS attacks, dealing with subpoenas from law enforcement, DMCA takedown notices, getting rid of illegal material, the list goes on. This work is difficult to do well, it's not the kind of thing that "developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work" can actually do successfully. The good developers in those sorts of countries are not doing busy work, they're starting their own social networks or migrating or doing the other things that good developers do.

majani 8y ago
Isn't the largest cost of most online business the staff? This cost would reduce 10x if given to third world devs and surely that will put most of these flailing websites in the black

sodafountan 8y ago

I think it's a fantastic idea, I'm not aware of any trusts/charities like it but I'm sure there's many older techies and rich .com entrepreneurs who'd be willing to donate something small.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]