Hacker News Reader

Comment by pragmaticlurker | Hacker News Reader

for the 1., it depends on the quality you want to achieve.

A business that relies on those platforms can't be called business.

I'd argue otherwise. For example, my sister just opened a local swimming pool for dogs and using one of these platforms is great for her so far. A presence with opening hours, pricing and contact details are all many small businesses need.

I need to know more about this business.

Exercise and rehabilitation, turns out it's something dog owners in the area had been missing.

Depends whether the website is your core competency. If it's just there to display your rates or a bit more about your business then there is no need to have anything more.

For instance, I operate a bar as a side business. I just knocked together a WordPress site in a few hours because I don't want the website to suck up too much of my time or to become a cost centre.

We have such "lego block" website builders in Germany since $forever, and while with some experience you can easily tell which builder (and therefore hoster) any restaurant or hairdresser used for their site, it's good enough for their purpose: get the word out there, announce their services and opening times, have something to point at from Maps.

There's also a chrome extension called Wappalyzer that can help you determine what was used to build the sites if its something you check often. Works pretty well in my experience.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com