Hot take: Is there any value in the world's most boring websites, or are they just a waste of server space?

Had a conversation with a buddy from my night shift last week. He runs a site that's just a list of all the ways to tie your shoes, no pictures, no ads, just text. He said it gets about 50 hits a day and he's proud of it. I told him that sounds like the most boring thing ever, but he argued there's a quiet beauty in documenting something so specific nobody else bothers with. So I'm asking you all: do these weirdly specific, ugly, dull sites serve a real purpose, or are they just digital junk that should be left to die? I'm genuinely torn on this one.

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_sullivan7d ago

A buddy of mine runs a site that's literally just a list of every screen door latch model from the 1950s. He told me a guy from Canada once emailed him because he was restoring an old camper and couldn't find the latch anywhere. That one site saved his whole project.

rubyj117d ago

My uncle used to run a site that was just a list of every single coin bank he'd ever seen. No photos, no prices, just names of banks and where he found them. He updated it once a month until he passed. Got maybe 30 hits a week but people actually emailed him asking about specific ones. One time a guy from England tracked him down to ask if he ever seen a particular 1970s piggy bank from some fair in Ohio. Turns out that was the only place on the internet that had it documented. So I guess boring to most people, gold to like three weirdos out there.