[rchaud]

> Did people back in the pre-google days think "oh I'd make this site but gosh darn there's nobody to pay me for it".

Google is a huge part of the reason the old web doesn't exist anymore. Artisanal websites cannot compete for visibility against corporate websites that have staff dedicated to figuring out SEO tricks from every imaginable source: page speed, HTTPS, image compression, meta tags.

The hobbyist back then didn't need to know all this. Today, not having HTTPS alone can cause your site to be hidden from search, even if it is read-only. In that kind of world, only the infinitesimally small minority will bother to make a website on their own dime.

[moffkalast]

I don't see why SSL is that much of an issue these days. Cloudflare does it for free, lots of hosting providers can handle let's encrypt for you.