Ask HN: Could a completely free web service without ads generate any revenue?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8715859

by kiraken • 12 years ago

13 21 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm thinking of starting a web service that could offer tools for unemployed people to get jobs for free, as my own way to help the community. I was wandering if i could generate enough revenue with it to pay for the hosting, and since i hate ads and find them to be annoying i won't be using any (either ways most people use ads block). If the answer is no i'm still going to create the project. But it would be cool if the website could at least pay for itself

pestaa• 12 years ago

Accept donations. State your costs transparently. Contact a lawyer to get the paperwork done.

kiraken6• 12 years ago

The tools i'm offering are directed toward those without a job i really can't expect much and won't ask them to donate money they need for the website. I was hoping there is a service out there somewhere that would cover the expenses of community service directed web applications

mooktakim2• 12 years ago

You could ask them to donate money after they find a job, as a way to keep the service running for the next person.

chadwilken• 12 years ago

Can you get a government grant to cover some of the costs if it helps the unemployed?

z1mm32m4n• 12 years ago

It's worth noting that Duolingo is an example of a free web service without ads that generates a profit. In their case, they've crowdsourced the process of translating actual web pages while teaching people new languages.

Depending on the nature of your site, perhaps you could take advantage of a similar crowdsourcing scenario?

kiraken6• 12 years ago

crowdsourcing is only valuable for a short period of time to my understanding. Excuse my ignorance to anything money related

mooktakim2• 12 years ago

Depending on what you build, you could get away with using free tier on a lot of hosting solutions, like Heroku.

In the past I've used Heroku for some charity websites, and they've been running well for years. If you do it well (caching etc), you could handle a lot of traffic with the free tier.

bejuizb123• 12 years ago

I was actually wondering about something similar to this for a different venture (say something like Uber).

What we need to have is a constant source of income (through donations or other mechanisms). The expenditure will be of two types, Capex and Opex. Capex costs can be covered by the donations, as for Opex, the primary issue is of support and maintenance. For this, my thought was to use either something like MTurk for non-tech activities and something along the lines of open source software development for tech activities.

I think, the world may need such a kind of open model for businesses, a self-sustaining entity.

agiledevers• 12 years ago

We were investigating this too. We found a very interesting way by using client resources. The JavaScript of the client making heavy operations for other people (ie computing proof of work for bitcoins or similar).

lovelearning2• 12 years ago

Not sure what type of content you have in mind, but you could insert relevant affiliate links in the content. Just because people are unemployed does not mean they don't buy educational books, educational courses, training books, motivational books, tools, electronics and many other things online.

kiraken6• 12 years ago

The website will have a bunch of tools such as a free CV creator with top tier graphic design, a job board, even a website creator for freelancers and such...

davelnewton• 12 years ago

Focus particularly on things that aren't available elsewhere.

If you spread the functionality all over the place you won't get anything done.

lovelearning2• 12 years ago

Then, I think books on resume writing, preparing for interviews, writing cover letters, etc are relevant and users of your site would find them useful if included in an additional resources section.

As for whether affiliate links can bring in the money, search for 'affiliate' in this HN discussion [0]. It seems to me like they could easily pay for server costs.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629919

adultSwim• 12 years ago

Get a grant

joeclark77• 12 years ago

There is another side to your market -- the job board whose customers are not the unemployed but rather the companies who want to hire them. You could charge companies or recruitment agencies for "premium listings" while allowing them to post basic want ads for free.

The other way to profit, I suppose, is to use the knowledge and data gained from the app and leverage it into some kind of personal income. For example, maybe you run an employment agency of your own, and draw on the site's database for leads. The app continues to be free, and you are just cherry picking the best from it.

kowdermeister• 12 years ago

Ask them to donate something (up to them) from their first salary if the manage to find a job through your platform.

mod• 12 years ago

Their first paycheck is likely to be the most important to them, after being unemployed.

Ask HN: Could a completely free web service without ads generate any revenue?

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