4 ms·

Fascinating post. Reading about the somewhat amateurish construction and maintenance of these sites made me think there is a good business opportunity here auto

Fascinating post. Reading about the somewhat amateurish construction and maintenance of these sites made me think there is a good business opportunity here automating the system -- not that I'm interested in pursuing it. I imagine the market for this service is very inefficient, as clients obviously don't like to talk about it and thus it is difficult to gauge quality.

r0s 13y ago
I can't conceive a way to decouple the client's name from the fraudulent information, it's all ultimately a cheap trick that will likely be automated to disregard.
enko 13y ago
> somewhat amateurish construction and maintenance of these sites Maybe it's my misplaced faith in human nature but I think this kind of thing is almost self-regulating. > not that I'm interested in pursuing it Exactly. It's funny how money works. I'm sure there's a lot of HN users reading this thinking "well fuck that, ten grand a month!" I guarantee you that after 6 months 99% of those people would be looking at themselves and wondering what they were doing with their lives. Getting a bit of money saves you from the wolves at the door - bills, rent, worrying about what you buy. And then you're in your nice, warm, fully paid up home and you get to face the real monster - the mirror.(†) Which is why these rich guys are paying through the nose for this nonsense in the first place, of course. Because that guy in the mirror is taunting them. Take money for doing something you know is wrong and he'll taunt you, too. The thing is, though, you can have as many fake philanthropy sites as you want, but you can't fool that guy in the mirror. (†) Or the whiskey bottle. Same thing really.
joe_the_user 13y ago
There's also a business opportunity in automating the sleuthing out of this kind of site. That might seem more legit but would also involve some creep factor. Edit: that's assuming these sites actually help anyone. But that's as may-be.

r0s 13y ago

I can't conceive a way to decouple the client's name from the fraudulent information, it's all ultimately a cheap trick that will likely be automated to disregard.

enko 13y ago

> somewhat amateurish construction and maintenance of these sites Maybe it's my misplaced faith in human nature but I think this kind of thing is almost self-regulating. > not that I'm interested in pursuing it Exactly. It's funny how money works. I'm sure there's a lot of HN users reading this thinking "well fuck that, ten grand a month!" I guarantee you that after 6 months 99% of those people would be looking at themselves and wondering what they were doing with their lives. Getting a bit of money saves you from the wolves at the door - bills, rent, worrying about what you buy. And then you're in your nice, warm, fully paid up home and you get to face the real monster - the mirror.(†) Which is why these rich guys are paying through the nose for this nonsense in the first place, of course. Because that guy in the mirror is taunting them. Take money for doing something you know is wrong and he'll taunt you, too. The thing is, though, you can have as many fake philanthropy sites as you want, but you can't fool that guy in the mirror. (†) Or the whiskey bottle. Same thing really.

joe_the_user 13y ago

There's also a business opportunity in automating the sleuthing out of this kind of site. That might seem more legit but would also involve some creep factor. Edit: that's assuming these sites actually help anyone. But that's as may-be.