He ran a 

hosting

business on the side. Except for two months it never made money. But it wasn't a big deal because he needed to host websites for people, including himself and his family anyway.

He was old school, still "hosted websites". Anybody else still in the hosting game -- which was not a vivacious space -- 'ran' 

apps

or 

API

s for you. Most the people who required website hosting in the old school manner found themselves now using services like 

SquareSpace

or 

Wix

or just foregoing a brochure like website altogether and just using a

Facebook

page as their company website.

Why not? Most people and businesses didn't need websites, and as a senior 

web developer

, he knew this intimately well.

When he was first learning to program it seemed like everybody would need a

website

. It felt like an exciting time when personal webpages would be how people communicated with each other and people with deep wallets were willing to dish out big bucks to differentiate the look and feel of their personal site. It looked like being a standard 

web designer

was going to be a good career option back then.

This was before social media. Before web designers and developers differentiated down such specialized paths. Back before apps and even 

SPA

s. This was a simpler time.

He finished his coffee at his favorite cafe while thinking about this. It was almost time to head back to the office. He hadn't accomplished his initial goal. Which was to write that email to his clients notifying them of the shutdown of his hosting solution. "Oh well," he thought. He could try again the next day.