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The dot.com had no idea. They talked about eyeballs.

I think they had an idea that it would be fees per transaction or a subscription model. They just had no customers.

They all thought it would be advertising or ecommerce. Subscriptions weren't a cultural phenomenon yet. That was a decade later.

They knew you could sell stuff on the internet. The payment processors were just clunky. It was fairly obvious at the time how it would all work.

I think the surprise was the degree to which ad revenue would eat the world. Maybe it will be the same this time.