From 2014 to around 2018 I was part of a team that was heavily invested into bringing these concepts to reality. What we accomplished was amazing and I still use some of them tools day-to-day, unfortunately we had to stop.
What I wanted to share is that it was extremely hard (and ultimately impossible for us) to accrue a critical mass of people that is willing to use these things AND pay for them. We reached a few hundred paying customers; but we were 6 guys working on this full-time, so that means salaries and overall we were losing money like nothing else.
That aside, I would do it again if I could, particularly now that the "standard tools" of the internet have become useless with time. Example, Google never gives me what I want anymore and they're removing the URLs now from the results (why?).
If someone reads this and want to kickstart some kind of "internet renaissance" with me, you can reach me here: alex@<HN-username>.com
What I wanted to share is that it was extremely hard (and ultimately impossible for us) to accrue a critical mass of people that is willing to use these things AND pay for them. We reached a few hundred paying customers; but we were 6 guys working on this full-time, so that means salaries and overall we were losing money like nothing else.
That aside, I would do it again if I could, particularly now that the "standard tools" of the internet have become useless with time. Example, Google never gives me what I want anymore and they're removing the URLs now from the results (why?).
If someone reads this and want to kickstart some kind of "internet renaissance" with me, you can reach me here: alex@<HN-username>.com