
Ask HN: Why is the internet so walled off - smithmayowa
I used to be a believer in the gospel of starting a tech company preferably a Saas app company being a great way to make money because of the possibility of reaching a very wide audience, and sadly that has turned out not to be the case anymore and from my experience this is mostly due to its ability to wall off people and create a sense of being in a vacuum to an individual, I mean when trying to make a sale in real life I could perhaps walk up to a individual in person in an appropriate environment and try to make a sale to him but on the internet there is no such thing you have to pay for google or facebook ads for very miserable conversion rates.
I really am starting to regret going all in into the online business outreach hype
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dazc
There is always a cost of doing business, even if it is just your time. For
example, you can get free leads from organic search but it will take a lot of
your time to get to a point where your site performs well in the SERPS. Your
time has a value because it's finite and you could be doing something more
profitable with it.

The alternative is to pay for search ads, and it can be costly, but what other
medium gives you direct visibility to people who are actively looking for your
product/service at a comparable cost?

In a previous life I was a tradesman - pre Google. There were two ways of
getting business back then. Slowly build-up clients by word of mouth or pay
for a featured listing in Yellow Pages.

Same problem - different medium.

