The dotcom bubble brought unprecedented opportunities.

Did you know you could make money online in 2000? Yes, really.

Back in 2000, the internet felt like a hidden treasure map, with countless ways to make real money if you were willing to look. At 16, living in a remote Russian town, I was just discovering it all. There were actual companies out there paying for what seemed like the simplest of tasks—clicking on banners, reading emails, even just surfing the web with ads floating on your screen. And, remarkably, they paid in real checks that you could cash!

When those first few checks arrived in the mail, it felt surreal. The tellers at the local bank had no idea what to do with checks from Silicon Valley, and neither did I, really! But there they were—small payouts that felt like treasures in a place where the internet itself was still something of a novelty. With those funds, I made what felt like my first “big” purchase: a new hard drive. A big deal for a teenager back then.

For a while, it felt like the possibilities were endless. Companies (they called them “sponsors”) would pay users to promote their sites, and if you brought in friends, you’d get bonuses when they did the same. It was as if the whole internet were building this system of referrals and clicks—growing and feeding into the idea that everyone could earn a piece of the web.

Of course, it didn’t last. The dotcom bubble burst, and suddenly the clicks and emails stopped translating into checks. But for that short, wild period, it was real. I came away with more than just a hard drive; I got a glimpse into the earliest forms of online entrepreneurship, a sense of what the internet might hold, and a memory of those early, exhilarating times.

Fun times, indeed.