“Activities aimed at generating income through all kinds of fraud and deceiving people” - this is how most explanatory dictionaries explain the meaning of the phrase “make money from the air”. But some enterprising personalities take this phrase absolutely literally and as a result get mad profits without the slightest investment in their “air business”.
Ideas are in the air, you just have to lend a hand ...
Remember the legendary Ostap Bender, who had a lot of clever ideas in his head about how to make money out of thin air. And for most ordinary people, such thoughts do not even come to mind. But there are special “instances” to which money pours like a river, although they do not need any special initial investments for this. The main thing, as it turns out, is imagination and the ability to present your goods favorably.
10-dollar cocktail of St. Petersburg air
The French turned out to be very big lovers of freebies - they’ve been selling bottles of Parisian air for 20 years, which, they say, is filled with the romantic spirit of the “love capital”.
But the Petersburgers understood how to make money from the air recently, on the eve of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city. They also decided to preserve the air, though in cans resembling Soviet canned goods, each of which they valued at $ 10. A shiny jar with a blue label on which the angel of the Peter and Paul Fortress flaunted, and an imported Italian lid (for some reason, domestic lids did not fit them) quickly attracted foreign tourists.
In addition, ingenious inventors also decided to place the composition of St. Petersburg air on the label. If you believe what is written on it, then inside the tin is: 50% of the air of the Summer Garden, 20% of the Pushkin air, 15% of the air of Nevsky Prospect, 5% of the air of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the same number of Pavlovsky, 3% of the New Dutch air and 2% Air Petrodvorets. Trusting tourists, you see, really liked this idea, because the jars immediately began to leave the shelves.
A sip of pure oxygen for $ 1
Another speculator who knows how to make money out of thin air is Chen Guangbiao from China. How did he become a millionaire? Very simple. It turns out that jars of pure oxygen are a hot commodity in the Middle Kingdom, because large industrial cities, such as Beijing, are constantly shrouded in smog clouds. Such an ecology is the result of the work of thousands of refineries whose administration is in no way concerned about environmental standards. Therefore, any resident of the capital (and even those same owners of the above plants) probably dreams of a breath of clean air.
So, this Chen Guangbiao managed to sell about 10 million "oxygen jars" in two weeks, for each of which he asked for only $ 1. This is how the Chinese Ostap Bender made a huge fortune.
The world's first online blackmail
As you already understood, it is not so difficult to deceive a gullible people. One of the Internet users who wanted to remain anonymous also knows how to make money out of thin air. Now you will find out why. So, to make good money, you need to have: a computer, access to the Internet and ... some kind of cute animal. Nonsense? Not really.
A few years ago a site was created on the network dedicated to the Toby rabbit, which the page owner, judging by his words, saved from death under the wheels of the car. And everything would be fine, but just a few days later the guy began to blackmail all people who were not indifferent to the fate of the rabbit, saying that he would eat a poor animal if he was not transferred a tidy sum of money. What did he just do to put pressure on the pity of fans of little Toby: and put pictures where the rabbit was sitting in the pan, and published all kinds of recipes for making rabbit meat. As a result, representatives of animal welfare organizations had to fulfill the demands of the blackmailer.
Million site
Since we’ve started talking about how to make money from the air on the Internet, we’ll also recall the thundering around the world Alex Tew, who became the owner of the site for a million bucks. This resource called www.milliondollarhomepage.com had a homepage that had exactly 1 million free pixels. And the adventurous Alex began to offer this space as a place for advertising. Moreover, 100 pixels would cost a hundred dollars to advertisers! At first, the site’s customers were Alex’s friends and acquaintances, but a year later the thousandth pixel went under the hammer for an incredible amount of 38 thousand dollars.
Do not think that this method of generating huge incomes is the destiny of only a few cunning people. Every day we come across such scammers. For example, we all know very well how banks make money from the air: interest, tricks, small prints on loan agreements, penny balances on cards, etc. And there are millions of those who want to make money on the credulity of the public. So watch out!