MillionDollarHomepage.com

[BWF89]

This guy from England thought of the idea of selling pixels for 1 dollar each on a website he made called Million Dollar Homepage. His goal was to get a million dollars to pay his way through college and so far he's made around 600,000.

I saw him on Fox News a couple of days ago and now he was just on Attack of the Show.

www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

[Malphas]

Saw this a while ago, not sure that I approve to be honest, at least most ad-brokers provide some sort of service, e.g. Google provides a search engine, television and radio provides entertainment (well, supposedly they do). What this guy has made is just a page full of advertisements.

[etc]

Don't support BS like this. I must have seen 3 of these sites in the past week. It's the equivialent of "Hey guys click my google ads, I need to feed my 5 kids, pay for utilities, and I need a new car"

[WildTangent]

Saw this a while ago, not sure that I approve to be honest, at least most ad-brokers provide some sort of service, e.g. Google provides a search engine, television and radio provides entertainment (well, supposedly they do). What this guy has made is just a page full of advertisements.
But...you're missing the point: It works. This guy's made over $600,000 :D If I could make even $100 from something like that, I would lose all moral issues with it :p

-Wild

[BWF89]

I still can't get on it. All the people that were watching Attack of the Show must be clogging the servers.

[Malphas]

But...you're missing the point: It works. This guy's made over $600,000 :D If I could make even $100 from something like that, I would lose all moral issues with it :p

-Wild
Well at the risk of sounding like an *******, I wouldn't. Do you have no moral issues with the way Microsoft operates because Bill Gates has made a lot of money for it? How about drug cartels, unethical oil and pharmaceutical companies, bank robbers, pimps etc.?

[BWF89]

Well at the risk of sounding like an *******, I wouldn't. Do you have no moral issues with the way Microsoft operates because Bill Gates has made a lot of money for it? How about drug cartels, unethical oil and pharmaceutical companies, bank robbers, pimps etc.?
Your acting like what the guys doing is wrong.

It's just a webpage made entirely out of ads. It's not like he's selling drugs or robbing banks. If you don't like the website don't visit it.

[Malphas]

Your acting like what the guys doing is wrong.
Well I certainly do think it's unethical and kind of sleazy. It's almost the same as begging, which I'm not against per se, except the guy doesn't need the money (not $600,000 anyway).


It's just a webpage made entirely out of ads. It's not like he's selling drugs or robbing banks. If you don't like the website don't visit it.
I didn't say it was comparable to those things. I was making a point using extreme examples that just because someone is capable of making money doing something, it doesn't mean that morals go out the window. That post was in response to WildTangent's statement and shouldn't be taken out of context.

[WildTangent]

Well at the risk of sounding like an *******, I wouldn't. Do you have no moral issues with the way Microsoft operates because Bill Gates has made a lot of money for it? How about drug cartels, unethical oil and pharmaceutical companies, bank robbers, pimps etc.?
That's entirely different. Those examples are highly unethical. If someone wants to give me $100 for a 100 pixel spot on my website, that's their problem, not mine, and it's not illegal.

-Wild

[23meg]

This is a summary of the over-commercialization of the web. Like a monolith.

[BWF89]

Well I certainly do think it's unethical and kind of sleazy. It's almost the same as begging, which I'm not against per se, except the guy doesn't need the money (not $600,000 anyway).
The guy who made the site is getting tons of money and the people who adversise on it are gettign tons of hits. It's not like he's screwing them out of their money or anything. It's cheap and effective advertising. Although I do think that this kind of thing is a fad that will wear off in a year or two.

[Malphas]

The guy who made the site is getting tons of money and the people who adversise on it are gettign tons of hits.
...and the people that visit the site and click on the links? That's my original point, at least with other entities that make money from advertising they actually give something back to the person that's being targeted, this site doesn't. Although I don't know why people would even visit and click on the links anyway. The guy's stategy is basically "hey come here and waste your time looking at/clicking these ugly ads so I get a million dollars", and it's being propogated by people emailing their friends, posting about it at messageboards, giving the guy TV interviews etc. as though this is actually something worthwhile and of value rather than the greedy, lazy scam that it really is.

[Collin]

smells like jealousy here :p

Well whatever the guy can do what he wants, if you have to go against someone don't go after that person, go after society in general, without the support of the internet community that person wouldn't make a single dollar, so it's some sort of statement to show us how we can be stupid sometimes as a community.

The same goes for everything, it's democracy and capitalism at it's best

[jeremy]

I don't think that he is doing anything wrong, he's just lucky that his site was reported in the British press, thus generating hits for what would have been just yet another unvisited site.

[BWF89]

Accordian to his FAQ once you buy a square it's going to be there forever because he's going to try to keep the site up for as long as he can. But what happens if the site that is linked there dies before his does? Is it eventually going to be a bunch of dead links?

...and the people that visit the site and click on the links? That's my original point, at least with other entities that make money from advertising they actually give something back to the person that's being targeted, this site doesn't. Although I don't know why people would even visit and click on the links anyway.
I clicked on a bunch of the links at school. It was quite fun.

But seriousaly, that site gets so many hits that I can't even get on except during school hours. This forum should seriousaly consiter putting up a Ubuntu advert. Shouldn't cost more than $300 in donations.