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The entire "build something people want" mentality is flawed. If I could raise enough money, I could build cars and give them away for free. It's something pe

by ssharp 18y ago

The entire "build something people want" mentality is flawed. If I could raise enough money, I could build cars and give them away for free. It's something people want and I would quickly own the market. Sure, the low overhead of the web makes giving your service away for free more realistic but it doesn't make the business model any more valid given the inability for a lot of well-funded startups to become profitable. It's not that difficult to monetize traffic but it is very difficult to monetize traffic to the levels that would justify the current web 2.0 valuations. Maybe everyone is thinking that one day soon, we're going to see a revolution in advertising that will rain down on website owners. I don't see it happening. This blog post was dead on.

volida 18y ago
I am not defending the current model but the reality is that there isnt another one for those trying to do a free service. Therefore providing some extra features for those who pay is the way to go if you dont want to depend on ads. Other than that if your web service scope is people who pay only then that means that probably in position to pay for marketting your product. To even have a chance to grow as big as youtube you have to have the capacity to exist without equal growth in terms of revenue. Thats the nature of the web services success and I don't see the reason to call it bubble. If it wasn't risky more people would do it. Contrary to that model, you can be one of the many successful sites that are not huge but make money by selling their product or service. Other than that the article is not dead on because is very generic. Just because not all attempts to create a business succeed doesnt mean there is a bubble.
ConradHex 18y ago
The car analogy isn't so great. Bandwidth is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. It's entirely possible to have a profitable website if even 1% of the visitors are paying customers.
- ssharp 18y ago
  There is a big difference between being profitable and being worthy of huge valuations (and eventually delivering on them).

by ssharp 18y ago

volida 18y ago

I am not defending the current model but the reality is that there isnt another one for those trying to do a free service. Therefore providing some extra features for those who pay is the way to go if you dont want to depend on ads. Other than that if your web service scope is people who pay only then that means that probably in position to pay for marketting your product. To even have a chance to grow as big as youtube you have to have the capacity to exist without equal growth in terms of revenue. Thats the nature of the web services success and I don't see the reason to call it bubble. If it wasn't risky more people would do it. Contrary to that model, you can be one of the many successful sites that are not huge but make money by selling their product or service. Other than that the article is not dead on because is very generic. Just because not all attempts to create a business succeed doesnt mean there is a bubble.

ConradHex 18y ago

The car analogy isn't so great. Bandwidth is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. It's entirely possible to have a profitable website if even 1% of the visitors are paying customers.

ssharp 18y ago
There is a big difference between being profitable and being worthy of huge valuations (and eventually delivering on them).