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Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

Also worth noting the 14 year tech bull run and ever increasing amounts of capital looking for a return. In 2000-2010 it was in many ways easier to bootstrap as everything was smaller, complexity was less with simpler browsers and no smart phones, UX expectations were less, and salaries for software engineers were more in line with average professional salaries.

Not that I disagree with your assessment on pg's incentives and YC's change in position over time, but the environment for software startups is also materially different now that affect you whether you take VC money or not.

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I'd argue the exact opposite.

Key costs like hosting are way cheaper, back then you probably had to rack server in a data center, now you can deploy a free/cheap PaaS with a free/cheap database while you find PMF.

Marketing is way cheaper, social media is a grind but it's a game you can play to acquire users/customers for _free_.

There's more stuff going on online, more people, more businesses, more everything. Think about the entire "creator economy", other bootstrappers, Shopify sites, etc.

Yeah some stuff has gotten harder, more platforms, higher UX standards. But on the whole I'd rather bootstrap in 2023 then 2010.

Check in with me in a year though.

> Key costs like hosting are way cheaper, back then you probably had to rack server in a data center, now you can deploy a free/cheap PaaS with a free/cheap database while you find PMF.

Back in the day I have delivered several different cheap 1U rackmount servers to data centres. Once took one - using public transport - to whatever suitable spot in the Docklands in East London. Travelling on the DLR with a server under one arm was a a memorable experience.

Long story short: you can do a lot from a $1000 server, if you put your mind to it.

Yet these days it seems PaaS is better, (over-)paying GCP/AWS/Azure, while you grope around to find a product that will sell for $$$ before your cloud credits run out?

Back in 2009 I had a dedicated server for $89/month

It wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but it was dual-core, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD. I ran a small forum, email server, and a couple buddies used it for shells and running whatever PHP apps they wanted.

An $80 Linode these days only has 16GB and 320GB.

A better comparison is something like Hetzner dedicated server.

Here's what you can get for $89+: https://www.hetzner.com/sb?price_from=89

For 92 euro: 128 GB RAM, 3 TB SSD, 8 core i9-9900K, unlimited bandwidth.

You get 50x value for the 2009 price.

you don't get 50x value, you have to do more to stay competitive.

If in 2009 you served 480p videos that was fine, now you have to serve 4k or you will look like a tool. Various grumbling about JS bloat is optional.

>Marketing is way cheaper, social media is a grind but it's a game you can play to acquire users/customers for _free_.

free marketing through effort is by no means a new concept.

( and it's not free. )

Does the current VC model only work in a bull run driven by cheap money? One the one hand cheap money driving growth of unprofitable startups subsidizing a market and on the other hand cheap money is ready to acquire these firms and /or invest in them once they IPO...but this only works if money remains cheap and in plentiful supply.

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