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Comment by OafTobark | Hacker News Reader

Bad assumption. Plenty of ways (too many to name) that can make money online. Some harder than others and ecommerce, drop shipping, and the like comes with its own set of challenges (big or small). It's more on how you execute something than it is thinking something will be a sure or more sure way of working

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Thanks for your reply. I understand that building a business is never going to be easy and that there will always be challenges. However, I guess the question I am asking is whether or not e-commerce is a faster route to sure profitability? For example, if I was to devote my time to building a social network it could potentially be very very lucrative. However, the likelihood of it being lucrative or ever even making money for that matter is a lot smaller than if I devote my time to ecommerce. This makes me think ecommmerce is a "surer" way of working(less risk).

The only way I know of speeding up the process is to get into a shady industry or take advantage of a loophole. Years ago there were websites making a lot of money simply by providing links to streaming movies & TV shows hosted on other websites.

I know a guy who made a million dollars from it. A year after he got out, all his competitors were getting sued and shutdown. But he was off the radar, got to keep everything and never got in trouble. He found the niche, created the website in a few days, made money for a year or two, and shut it down with precision timing to maximize profits and minimize risk.

Thanks for your comment. That is an interesting story and something to think about. What is the loophole at the moment? Not that I want to get involved in anything shady. A lot of the time with start-ups there is a lot of risk with the possibility of massive rewards, however there has to be safer options(medium risk) without getting a corporate job or being a contractor.

Bittorent and Bitcoin make a millionaire every week, it's high risk though. You could start a tracker like Demonoid and your only job would be to move the servers around and cover your tracks (ie: pay with visa gift cards, use chained proxies)

Another high risk option is becoming a vendor on Silk Road. Those guys are getting more orders than they can handle. Even the guys who just resell/repackage are making a killing.

You could even open your own Silk Road, which is lower risk than being a vendor. Just collect your small fee off every transaction, while staying completely anonymous.

Most of this stuff probably seems pretty shady to most people. But anyone with 10-20k, some balls and smarts can become a millionaire from it, very quickly.

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