HACKER Q&A
📣 ricoche

What online businesses do you find dumb but make a lot of money?


What online businesses do you find dumb but make a lot of money?


  👤 mtmail Accepted Answer ✓
Last week searched for to get a refund for a travel ticket (German train company). Several online companies claim the process is complex and offer an express service, for a 30% cut. The refund process is actually pretty straight forward.

Same with a company that ranked high for "cancel $big_company subscription membership". You fill out a form, pay 10 Euro, and they will print a letter and mail it to $big_company on your behalf.


👤 entuno
It always astonishes me how much people are willing to pay for cosmetic digital items (game skins, stickers, NFTs, etc). But it's a huge market, even if you leave out the bits of it that are just gambling.

👤 giantg2
Porn. There's so much free content (even amateur), yet some people pay big money for it.

👤 solardev
Crypto anything

👤 rockyperezz
(E-commerce example) Well I was surprised to find out the PetRock from the 70s had its own website and was still being sold - for USD29.99 a pop. Guess its easy to survive as a company with (I'd assume) ridiculously low production costs

👤 dotcoma
NFTs, crypto currencies, ringtones, porn, videogames, even SaaS software one seldom uses…

👤 hnreport
Bill maher mentioned recently that it’s everything. Everyone has too much money to buy too little shit, and also the money is being inflated away.