How and when did you learn that you could make a living on the net?

And what happened since then?

[thegreatpretender]

In 1999 I got this email with a subject "Get Rich Quickly". I followed the link on it and landed in a website telling I could be rich using the secret in his ebook for $99. Hesitant but really curious I bought the ebook, not until I saw 100% money back guarantee just below the order button! It turned out I would be selling the same ebook and have 50% commission on every sales. The ebook teaches me "secrets" like where and how to promote the same website with my affiliate code attached to it. After a week of using those hit exchange websites, I got two sales! Although it didn't last for long and didn't become rich, I realiazed I could be really making money on the net. Now, at 34 left my real world job, have my first brand new car, and a brand new house :)

How about you?

[mack]

For me it was also in the late ninties, it seamed as if the web was a big money making machine and just about everyone had a business plan in their back pocket. It almost seamed as if you only had to haave a website to maake your millions. They reality hits!

It was easy enough to make some money, but you had to think out of the box to make any sort of real money. Affiliate programs like the one you mentioned worked wonders back then, because there where just so many suckers!

As people began to wake up and realise the web wasn't an easy way to geet ritch, it became a little bit harder. Then it was all about chosing the right affiliate programs and grafting enough content to get them seen. To be honest its a bit like that today.

Im still waiting for my first million :), but the web keeps me afloat!

Mack.

[adamxcl]

It was the mid-nineties. I started in 1994 and went full time on my own in 1999. Possibilities were only limited by the time in your day.

[wheel]

Wait, what? We can get paid for doing this?

[mack]

Yea I think the internet people send you a cheque? :)

I think it is a lot tougher for people just getting started now than it was back in the day.

Mack.

[adamxcl]

I do think it's much harder now to do what I did back then. Not impossible by any means but much more difficult than it once was. I used to make a change on the site and see results almost immediately on search engines back then. Now it takes hours...or...well much longer.

[LifeinAsia]

I got an e-mail from a deposed Nigerian prince several years ago promising me lots of money for just providing my bank account information and some upfront money to handle the transfer fees. I haven't gotten the payout yet, but I just *KNOW* this Net thing's going to be big- I've already gotten messages form 5 other deposed Nigerian princes... ;)

Serious though, for me it was early 1996 when I sat in for a seminar on something the guy called E-commerce. Later that year, I started getting paid for building sites freelance.

Based on a disagreement on the direction to go, I took the owner's advice of "If you don't like it this way, you are free to build your own site how you want." His site went offline less than a year later. Mine allowed me to quit the corporate world a few years later and start my own business. :)