A few years ago, I noticed something.
People in Chinese online business communities were selling courses for ¥49 — “How to Make Money Online,” “Build Your Side Hustle,” “AI Tools for Passive Income.” They ran ads. They had landing pages. Some of them were making real money.
I bought one once, out of curiosity. The content was scraped from websites. Reformatted. Packaged into a PDF. The guy selling it hadn’t done any of the things he was teaching.
At the time, I was running my own side hustle website — zfuye.org, a Chinese resource site about finding extra income. I had 1,500 articles. I knew how to run ads. I understood the model.
I could have done exactly the same thing.
I didn’t.
I’m not saying I’m better than those people. I understand why they did it. ¥49 doesn’t feel like much per sale, but when you’re selling to thousands of people who are desperate for a way out — a factory worker, a single parent, a recent graduate who can’t find a job — it adds up.
That’s exactly why I couldn’t do it.
The people buying those courses weren’t wealthy. They were spending ¥49 because they were hoping — genuinely hoping — that this time something would work. Selling them recycled content felt like taking money from someone who couldn’t afford to lose it.
So I shut down the site instead. Stopped updating. Let it go quiet.
That decision cost me. Eight years of trying to make money online, and I never made any. Not from the goji berry website. Not from the roll-up piano business. Not from the side hustle content site. Zero.
When I built this blog and started making tools, I made a rule for myself: everything is free.
No paywalls. No “unlock premium features.” No email required. You arrive, you use it, you leave. That’s the whole transaction.
A few of the tools have a Ko-fi tip button — a small “buy me a coffee” link. But not all of them. Only the ones I genuinely think are good. The ones I spent real time on. The ones I’d use myself.
If I don’t think a tool is worth someone’s time, I don’t think it’s worth their money either. So I don’t ask.
Some people think this is naive. “You’re leaving money on the table.” Maybe. But I’ve been leaving money on the table for eight years — I’m used to it.
The thing is, I don’t think the people selling those ¥49 courses are sleeping particularly well. Not the ones who know their content is worthless. There’s a specific feeling that comes from taking money you didn’t earn — I’ve never had it, but I’ve watched it in other people.
I slept fine. I just didn’t have any money.
Two years ago I started learning value investing, using AI as a study partner. That’s the first online-adjacent thing that actually worked for me. Not because I found a shortcut — because I spent two years learning something real and then applied it carefully.
I think those two things are connected. Eight years of not taking shortcuts made me better at recognizing what was actually worth doing.
I still haven’t made much money from this blog or these tools.
But I’ve never sold anything I didn’t believe in. I’ve never packaged someone else’s work and charged for it. I’ve never looked at a desperate person and thought: there’s an opportunity here.
That’s not a business strategy. It’s just the only way I know how to do this.
Related Reading
- My Goji Berry Website Ran for 6 Years and Never Made Money
- I Took Out My Roll-Up Piano After 3 Years. I Was Playing in 20 Minutes.
- The Side Hustle I Quit Because I Felt Guilty
- Building in Public Diary — All Entries
Free Tools From This Site
Everything here is free. No sign-up. No paywall.
- Life Clock — Black hole months + Life Density score
- Value Investing Calculator — Margin of safety, intrinsic value
- Mandarin Flashcards — HSK 1–3, 400 words
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