Internet glory years

[compuwiz1]

I was one of the original WMC's, so blame me. I got my 19" Hitachi Superscan monitor, and some other hardware, for my inconvenience.

Now buy.com will not charge my credit card, no matter what. They won't ship me anything, either.

One of these days, Scott Blum is gonna fall of that building he advertises from.

 

[goog40]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
also got in on a 350 dollar video card from best buy thanks to microsofts/aol internet dealy thing. think it was 400 dollars free stuff for just signing up most people just canceled the service after getting their stuff. it was chaos once it got out that you could lol

Oh yes, we got one of our computers for almost nothing thanks to Microsoft.

Also, the Dell 8250 that was under $100 plus shipping (when the 256MB of RAMBUS that came with the system cost around $100 on pricewatch alone).

The great Dell price mistake that made almost any of their non-system items basically free. Many of the orders were cancelled, but many got through too.

 

[UncleWai]

The days when free shipping actually means free shipping. Now everywhere is free shipping <font size=0.001> after purchase of $500 worth of goods</font size=0.001>.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Back in the day when everyone's websites were crudely coded in html using pink backgrounds and neon green text...

 

[dennilfloss]

The days of Zombo.com.

 

[GoPackGo]

800.com and their free popcorn

 

[chrisms]

hypermart.net and the other free web hosts that didn't put ads on your site

 

[everman]

All the freebies were great, insane coupon deals, and I had free dialup for quite a while.
...then companies were told they had to make money to survive

 

[purbeast0]

I was all about epinions.

I made like $600 off of them in a week or so from writing reviews on Tennis Rackets and shoes, and then running this IRC script in a channel with like 50-60 other people, and when the script was run, everyone in the channel viewed your review.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
I was all about epinions.

I made like $600 off of them in a week or so from writing reviews on Tennis Rackets and shoes, and then running this IRC script in a channel with like 50-60 other people, and when the script was run, everyone in the channel viewed your review.

Dude, thats cheating...you should give that money back to them.....

 

[uhohs]

no one mentioned value america yet?

 

[akshatp]

Originally posted by: uhohs
no one mentioned value america yet?

ZOMG I was just about to!!!!

I remember AllAdvantage the best though.. I had over 30 accounts all referred to each other... I remember my biggest check was over $500... I was running those adbars at every PC at work in my group (Merrill lynch) over night with the auto mouse mover thing... LOL

I must have cleared over $5k from them.... I had a spreadsheet to keep track of everything! LOL

 

[zeruty]

I, <ahem> I mean my friend made a couple hundred from alladvantage. It was pretty easy, just get the cheat program. And he didn't use the programs on "his" accounts, he had referrals with fake info... all my income was from 2nd level referrals... he could just picture those checks for thousands of dollars being delivered to 123 Fake St., etc!


I used to use free internet with netzero, and then freei.net.... now there is another one still running around seattle, called nocharge... still works to this day. No ad banners either, just $10 per call for tech support(but who ever needed to call that?) Of course it's slow even for dialup, but it works in a pinch. Still got the number and username and pass memorized... 2064951000 user:guest passassword

 

[JackRipper]

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: toekramp

Originally posted by: chambersc

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I miss the glory days for a different reason.
WAREZ OUT THE WAZOOO!

omg, yeah.

uh, those glory days are now

Uh, no they are not.
But i'm glad you didnt use the roll eyes cuz that would tick me off.

I am tempted to go into my knowledge of actual warez sites since so many people here think they know what they are.
But in doing so I may leave myself open to getting crushed by a mod.
I'll play it safe.

eh don't get upset when topsites shut down on u :roll: lolz...

p2p's are bad in some ways but they spread, spawn, and evolve like viruses against the overly antipirate folks...

on a diff note... 99-01 napster was going pretty strong and mp3's were beginning to get popular.

 

[LaBang]

Value America bucks. oh yeah. but for some reason I don't actually rememeber what I got through them, all that I know is that it was a lot. My best memory was getting a $400 instant rebate to best buy, no strings attached, thanks to the internet.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Originally posted by: minendo

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
The original Napster, before Lars Ulrich turned into a complete asswipe.

The original Audiogalaxy.com kicked Napsters ass.

QFT...
I never used Napster... by the time Audiogalaxy had died, I'd already moved beyond Napster (Kazaa, DC++...)

Otherwise, I'm glad I had my share in riding the technology wave... I remember getting DVDs for as low as $4 on average, using coupons for pre-orders and getting stuff at ridiculously low prices or for free...

Oh, yeah, is there anyone here who remembers the free computers from shopss.com? or the Wounded Monitor Children? Or the time when the posting of coupons was allowed and encouraged?

 

[zeruty]

I don't know if its true, but I heard from someone that in the very early days of amazon.com, you could add an item to your shopping cart, set the quantity to a negative number, and that value would show up as a credit in your total. Then all you had to do was add the items you wanted, and click order. Stuff for free...

Heard that from the guy who founded Defcon, at some computer convention I was at in seattle... talked to the guy after his breakout session talk thing, he was cool.

 

[vi edit]

Heh. I still use my Revere cookware almost daily that I got from Value America. Buy one get one free!

 

[markgm]

Those were the good old days! I remember alladvantage too. I remember when I got my first check I couldn't believe that this was real. I went on ebay and bought a stack of 386 laptops and installed Windows 95, the alladvantage bar, and jiggymouse.exe. I made thousands from it. I referred myself and made money from my other accounts. I too had a spreadsheet. All I remember was thinking that if this was real I would never have to work a day in my life. It lasted only a few months.

I also took advantage of cyber rebates. I started out small and then started to make bigger and bigger orders. One morning a friend called me and asked if I had seen the site today... I lost a few thousand from it, but I was able to get most of it back from my credit card company, and then recently I got a small check from their settlement.

The one I used a lot in college was the free calling plan, where you called in and had to listen to ads for 2 minutes of talk time. I can't remember the name of it, I just remember one of the ads, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. I must have heard that ad a hundred times! I used to use Juno around that time too.

I want my Geocities web page back too! Whenever Yahoo! bought them it went to web page heaven. Ahhh, the days before Myspace!