

Ask HN: Could you suggest how to market a proxy server? - Concours

I'm working on a side project, I've set a proxy server and I'm trying to find the best way to generate profit from it. Subscriptio via paypal (not really sure about this) , find an exclusive Sponsor for advertising , sell part of the service as CDN (or Cache) or just sell the software? any feedback on the viability? would you pay to use it?
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gexla
I don't think it would be worth the effort to try monetizing. These things are
a dime a dozen and they get blacklisted quickly. They can also be expensive to
run because of the bandwidth usage. Also, some hosting providers don't allow
proxies. My biggest problem with them is that I wouldn't want my server IP
address showing up as accessing pedo sites or other types of illegal sites
because of the users. Even worse is that some proxy server software caches
sites by default (and can even get spidered.)

Good luck, but I think your efforts would best be spent elsewhere.

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Concours
thanks , you might be rigth on that, well I don't really need to worry about
the bandwidth as it's hosted on GAE, the idea was to have a 0 effort side
project set up

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jm4
Who would use the proxy server and why?

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Concours
the target audience is the average internet user , and peoples in countries
with Firewalls and censorship, and probably people that have concern about
their Privacy. If you leave in china , iran , myamar...you obviously need one,
if you leave in other western countries, you may need one for facebook, you
tube , twitter, and to stay under the google radar

