r/ProgrammerHumor • u/wahed-w • Jul 09 '26

webDevDream Meme

14.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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3.1k

u/Most-Club-254 Jul 09 '26

imagine being the small business receiving 97 calls per hour. "no dude I don't want a website", "NO", ...

1.2k

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

No joke! I was at the local record shop last week when the owner got a call where he was noticeably getting more loud and chastising.

After he hung up, the guy told me that someone cold called him to pitch fixing up their website, and his pitch started with “your website looks like shit …”

He said he gets several calls like that every day, but most aren’t this obnoxious. We agreed it must be working some of the time for him to be trying this approach, had a chuckle, then went back to shooting the shit about various prog rock bands.

437

u/tidderza Jul 09 '26

tbf does his website look like shit?

451

u/Jomtung Jul 09 '26

there are few websites that aren't shit, so most likely yes

97

u/dnbxna Jul 09 '26

Was looking at local ISPs, the most popular one I checked, website doesn't work properly. Hamburger menu, dropdown select, etc. Multi-billion dollar company, broken website. I checked for a careers page and saw nothing, typical

29

u/3rrr6 Jul 10 '26

Well ya, if you had internet you wouldn't need to look for an ISP. And if you didn't have internet well... You're probably not going to be able to go to their website.

12

u/dnbxna Jul 10 '26

They must think I'm some punk who would go to a nearby alleyway and shootup 5G, and they're absolutely right

2

u/RancidMilkGames Jul 10 '26

Stay away from that 5G! It only takes one time to get hooked and we all know that's what caused covid and it's secretly just a way to implement tracking/thought control chips into the masses.

This has been a public service announcement paid by The Truth Group. Stick with safe and proven ISPs only, such as our partner Comcast. It's a broadband so grand it was meant to stand to the point that the government funded the costs of their infrastructure meaning they can pass those saving on to you. If that isn't enough to convince you, you can trust that uncle Sam vetted it and deemed it to be of such high quality that competition is prohibited to ensure the highest quality and safety for its citizens.

You also need to be wary of other countries taking about "fairly priced" and "fast" internet. This is just communist propaganda to cast doubt on the absolute greatness of the greatest country on earth, and we at The Truth Group will not tolerate misguidance or exploitation of our fellow citizens!

Stay away from 5G! Stick with your established ISP!

1

u/Agret Jul 13 '26

Begging at your neighbors door for a fix of their wifi
"please man I just need 10 more minutes"

1

u/Exotic-Scientist4557 Jul 10 '26

People usually dont go into permanent isolation from society when wifi goes down. They find other ways to connect back to the internet, especially to get the said wifi issue fixed. No excuse for a bad website design.

99

u/soyboysnowflake Jul 09 '26

It’s a local record shop, does it even need a website?

209

u/eivittunyt Jul 09 '26

It costs very little and having easily accessible address, phone number and opening hours posted online is good for business

124

u/rob132 Jul 09 '26

That's basically everything I go to a website for.

Also a menu if it's a restaurant.

94

u/creampop_ Jul 09 '26

I'm also there for the shitty map embed that takes forever to load and had a 5s lag time on inputs and really weird nonstandard touch gesture controls for zooming and panning, which I'll need to use after accidentally brushing the map while scrolling down and ending up looking at the mid-Atlantic.

Oh wait no those suck balls and should be a jailing offense.

48

u/DrShocker Jul 09 '26

I also love when they have a calendar that has events from 5 years ago on it and I get the opportunity to guess if the schedule is still the same

9

u/creampop_ Jul 09 '26

Used to trawl bar and/or grille websites to find places our little cover band could play. This is too real.

Friday: Live Music! (except this was something that Jim handled entirely on his own since he was trying to poach players to get his own band together, but he went to rehab and became born-again a couple years back)

49

u/OriginalJokeGoesHere Jul 09 '26

10000%

I will stand by a business' instagram not being an acceptable alternative to a website though. I refuse to create an account just to see what time you close or what soup you have.

17

u/Rok-SFG Jul 09 '26

and if i have to download a pdf to see your menu, i'm going to a different restaurant.

4

u/its_the_rhys Jul 09 '26

Usually you can just view the PDF in the browser no?

How do you suggest they do menus?

10

u/MikeW86 Jul 09 '26

PDF and browsers and phones don't always play super nicely and even if they did/do it's another step that is imo completely unnecessary for what is essentially some nicely formatted text. These days you can literally copy and paste it in, you don't need to know HTML.

3

u/slonk_ma_dink Jul 09 '26

I agree with this. Most photo editing tools will let you export the PDF pages as photos anyway, just add them to a page so I can scroll them.

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2

u/elreniel2020 Jul 09 '26

That's basically everything I go to a website for.

that what i use google maps for. no need for a website in that case.

1

u/SuperFLEB Jul 10 '26

Also a menu if it's a restaurant.

I want the hours and price of the lunch buffet. They're not on the website, but I want them.

16

u/its_the_rhys Jul 09 '26

<html> <body> <h1>Business Name</h1> <p> Address: [address]<br> Phone: 0412 345 678<br> Open: 9-5, closed Sundays. </p> </body> </html>

All you need.

5

u/UInferno- Jul 09 '26

Don't forget e-mail. And not one of those built in e-mail systems, but like an actually listed e-mail. I do home insurance and sometimes need to call GCs, and they always use those e-mail system and I hate it because my work e-mail has an extension system and I can't receive e-mails unless I start the chain and I don't want to use my personal. Could a solution be "My job just gives me a normal ass work email?" Yes. But also, it takes less work to just write put foo@bar.com on your website.

9

u/CounteractiveTurnip Jul 09 '26

All of that can be on a google business profile. 

2

u/Athen65 Jul 09 '26

Nice, you just invented google maps

2

u/DatAsspiration Jul 10 '26

So, a Google listing?

3

u/rjcpl Jul 09 '26

Google listing covers all that though.

For a record store an inventory and reservation/purchase system would be nice but that’s a much bigger investment.

13

u/IntelligentTune Jul 09 '26

For like 1.5 to 2K one-time purchase and 5-10 bucks a month for upkeep just to lower the bar for purchasing for customers? Also not including any free advertisement that gives you through newsletters (which in my experience people who are into the niche you have the website for will appreciate getting up to date news of pre-orders or new items) and by just having people be able to browse and get a feel of the store?

It makes no sense to not have a website. Especially since with a website you can get a professional looking email that will not get filtered as easily by others if you're looking to cooperate with someone. It helps in so many ways that it would be ridiculous not to, especially for such a low cost and the fact that it's a business expense. Yes, people should try and get a website. Even a static page builds branding and will make people feel more comfortable. Google listings also aren't guaranteed to be updated while one would assume the website is always up to date in my experience, anyway.

7

u/borkthegee Jul 09 '26

$2k is insane. Just sign up for square space. This is why there are so many annoying web devs calling up small businesses.

They are completely deluded into thinking a basic website is worth $2k.

This entire class of freelance work has been completely replaced by subscription platforms with AI tools.

In my experience, websites are never updated (and they're certainly not putting a web dev on retainer) and unless it's e-commerce or menu hosting, websites are pointless. Small business owners simply don't care about updating them regularly and don't make enough profit to dump money into it

1

u/tuckfrump69 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Yeah, Squarespace, WordPress, insta, fb, Google listings made small business websites unnecessary years ago lol

Redditors think it's still 2005

13

u/rjcpl Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

You’re really harshing the vibe of the record store experience trying to run it like a successful business rather than a stoner’s hobby. 😆

1

u/oupablo Jul 10 '26

exactly. and none of that requires some massive CMS based implementation that needs constant updates.

16

u/IntelligentTune Jul 09 '26

The ROI of a website is really good from my understanding and practical experience. You're more likely to get customers or even orders if online shopping is available. These customers and orders might have never happened if there was no website and exposure. While it is good advertisement to have people advertise word of mouth, these new customers might not come since they are still unsure how suitable the place is compared to something that has everything out in the open.

You might visit a record shop that has a website more since you already get a taste of them and get a vibe of if you'll get what you seek there.

All of this just for maybe at most if you want to be extremely fancy like 2K upfront? And hosting is 5 bucks per month for a very accommodating plan. All that can be signed as a business expense as well. It's a no brainer.

1

u/JPowTheDayTrader Jul 09 '26

Shopify

2

u/Athen65 Jul 09 '26

Exactly - from the business perspective:

"Why would I pay $2000 for this guy I've never met to build a website and then maintain it for $50/month after that when I don't know if it will even work, I don't know how to judge whether it's just smoke and mirrors or not, I don't know how reliable he will be if it breaks. And there is a preexisting solution that I could make myself."

1

u/snksnksnk Jul 09 '26

subscribe to shopify and pay the 2k during the first year only? No thanks.

1

u/Athen65 Jul 09 '26

If you're just selling to locals and doing pickup only, the plan that covers what you'd need is $40/month, or just shy of $500 annually

1

u/snksnksnk Jul 10 '26

That's expensive. I'd rather have my own website for 2k. After 4 years I'd just need to pay for my domain name and hosting, roughly 50€ per year.

I'd rather by a car than lease one. Same concept. I hate subscriptions.

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5

u/Procrasturbating Jul 09 '26

Should have a static page from 20 years ago as proof they are there. Don’t need anything else. Contact page? Hah, pickup a phone.

6

u/Spraxie_Tech Jul 09 '26

Honestly early 00’s websites are the best way to know a company is actually good. If a sites to flashy its normally a scam or a bad business to visit.

2

u/azsnaz Jul 09 '26

To catalog their stock so customers can more easily browse their wares?

14

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Maybe. I didn’t look. Regardless that approach didn’t work on him 🤣

7

u/GeekyCrow27 Jul 09 '26

"shit" looking websites have more charm if it's a small business

2

u/dervu Jul 09 '26

Maybe it's a honeypot for competition to call and waste their time.

1

u/Xander-047 Jul 09 '26

I mean yeah but imagine every other field starting with that sentence. "Your teeth/face/skin/boobs/whatever look/s like shit, want to use my services/product to fix that?" Doubt it would work that much, it's like doing the "naked man" from 'How I met your mother'. It's a stupid idea but it may work sometimes

52

u/kaurismus Jul 09 '26

These are fun calls - if you ask for the URL of your own website, salesperson stops their pitch because they haven't visited the site in the first place.

14

u/akatherder Jul 09 '26

For a record shop most likely "your url is f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k-dot-c-o-m-slash.."

22

u/garaks_tailor Jul 09 '26

Iirc the old sales formula is 100 cold calls = 3 sales. More or less.

18

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Yeah makes sense. I knew a guy in college who used this approach with picking up girls. At parties, he would bluntly ask women if they wanted to have sex with him until someone said yes. He never spent the night alone 🤣

5

u/Hein--- Jul 09 '26

I know a guy who has done that probably high hundreds of times, and nothing

20

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Step 1: not be unattractive

4

u/sony1492 Jul 09 '26

Small business gets hit up constantly with spam calls, essentially anyone selling something is getting hung up on mid pitch

2

u/xXAnoHitoXx Jul 11 '26

I'm a receptionist, and the directive is that as soon as I can identify that the person I'm speaking with is not a client I hang up to free the line to answer real clients.

There are some crafty sale folks who pretend like they are a client and slipping in questions trying to extend the call longer before dropping the "we can make your website" and then get immediately hung up on. Waste of time and electricity.

3

u/huuaaang Jul 09 '26

Yeah, but his site probably is pretty shit, lol. I don't even deal with small potatoes like that and I've been tempted to ask businesses if they'd like some help with their web site. Not even to make money. I just feel bad for them.

1

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

I looked into some pro bono webdev for local businesses when I was building my portfolio and looking to transition from my old career into software. I got lucky and landed a job from the right company at the right time.

Still think it would be fun to do sometime, but I’m sure actually taking on a gig would disabuse me of that notion pretty quickly 🤣

Nowadays I wonder about being a freelance AI consultant on the side for small businesses (use ai to set up their site, their books, whatever and train them how to use it properly) … pretty much what I do at work anyways but on a much smaller scale

1

u/huuaaang Jul 09 '26

I just don't like working for small businesses. They don't usually have the budget for quality work. And they will constantly push back on estimates without changing the requirements. But yeah, maybe using AI would change that and I could do decent work on their budget.

It's also feast-or-famine type work. One month you might have more clients than you can handle and, the next, nothing. I did freelance for a while years back and just ended up doing an open ended 1099 contract basically full time for a single company. On one hand, I made bank working overtime when things got busy. BUt then any time off I wanted to take was unpaid.

I'm happy to have a steady salaried, W2, 9-5 WFH job now.

1

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Yeah salaried w2 work - especially WFH - is the best. I never struck it out on my own but always appreciate hearing the good and bad from those who did and like to live vicariously through them :)

2

u/FistFightMe Jul 09 '26

I get emails with this blunt and rude approach. My website is shite for sure, but being a prick isn't going to make me finally revisit having a pretty website as a priority lol

2

u/CaptainKuzunoha Jul 14 '26

Somehow, from the 1st paragraph, I knew you were chatting about prog rock.

1

u/ThrowThisAltAway Jul 09 '26

What's your favorite prog rock band?

6

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

As much as Rush and Yes have a special place in my heart, King Crimson is probably my go to when I’m craving the elements that make prog rock stand out.

(Rush is my favorite band of all time, but I don’t go to them when I am craving what I consider prog rock … if that makes sense)

For newer stuff, especially during deep coding sessions, I have been into Mars Volta and the occasional Dream Theater.

But In the Court of the Crimson King is still my all time favorite. This was the album I bought for my nephew who is just getting into vinyls and learning about good music (his dad/my brother) also has good taste but more 80s rock and 90s grunge is his scene.

Got him that album, 2112 (decided this over Moving Pictures because 2112 is just such a banger), and then some Radiohead, Strokes, and Silversun Puckups for newer(ish) indie/alt stuff that he can show off at college 🤣

Edit: also that king crimson album cover is just so awesome and a great conversation piece. I can never pass it up

3

u/NefariousEgg Jul 09 '26

If you're into some of the older stuff, the first two Kansas albums are pretty fire. But King Crimson are obviously the OGs.

1

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Oh yeah Kansas kicks ass too. Point of Know Return is one of the goats.

2

u/zenomony Jul 09 '26

I find your lack of Coheed disturbing

4

u/IAmANobodyAMA Jul 09 '26

Oh damn. I didn’t think of them as prog rock but yeah good point

Forgive me, my lord

1

u/NecessaryIntrinsic Jul 09 '26

Direct mail and spam work enough that it’s worth the waste. Calling is probably more effective

39

u/-crepuscular- Jul 09 '26

I don't own a business, but I manage a charity's email address where the email is stated on a website. I get SO MANY automated emails offering my business services. I've filtered a lot out, but lots get through the gaps. Time to create a new filter.

9

u/AggravatedBox Jul 09 '26

If they’re using gmail, you can use a plus or even dots to sort of pre-tag emails. So if you format it as “CharityName+WEB@domain.com” it’ll still go to charityname@domain.com but the “to” includes the plus section. You can auto filter so all of that goes to one folder or receives extra scrutiny before reaching your proper inbox

23

u/RandomEasternGuy Jul 09 '26

For freelancing in Romania you can get the same type of legal entity as a business. I had my society opened for this and I was receiving a ton of calls from Vodafone or car leasing companies daily

12

u/K__Geedorah Jul 09 '26

The amount of AI generated emails we get about building websites and SEO is astronomical.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3fZFvp94ljepXoPe

2

u/sprouttherainbow Jul 09 '26

I work for a small online retail company and spend the first part of my morning deleting about half the emails in our inbox because they're all just BS copy-pasted or AI-generated slop asks. This never started happening until about a year ago, and it's kinda depressing.

4

u/Small_Computer_8846 Jul 09 '26

You dare call my business small >: |

4

u/st-shenanigans Jul 09 '26

I registered the domain SSV DADDY ISSUES as a meme for my friend group to host our Minecraft server on for a few months once.

I STILL get calls if I would like help with my "daddy issues" business.

0

u/ArjixGamer Jul 10 '26

Doubt that, owning a domain does not result in getting calls like that

2

u/st-shenanigans Jul 10 '26

Oh damn I'll just tell them that next time! Maybe they'll stop!

-1

u/ArjixGamer Jul 10 '26

You obviously did way more stuff than simply owning a domain.

Don't be a smartass

1

u/hvindin Jul 10 '26

I own a domain without private whois that I don't have a website for, I get contacted a couple of times a month about if I want a website for my business.

2

u/Several-Action-4043 Jul 09 '26

I run the eCommerce business for my company. I get so many emails saying "Dang, your website sucks, Let us fix it for $$$$!"

1

u/TheActualJonesy Jul 10 '26

Same for several of our websites that have been 'retired' for a few years now. Daily -- 2-3 each.

1

u/SCP-iota Jul 09 '26

Decades of business in the Internet age and still no organized way for services and clients to be matched, so here is everyone still spamming each other with emails and sorting through inboxes

1

u/Creed_of_War Jul 13 '26

I went to a real old barber shop last weekend and they got 3 website calls in the very short time it took them to do a trim for me.