My side-project makes money because it's in a specific niche: It requires trust that the service will still operate tomorrow, and the fact that it's been going for nearly 20 years is a selling point you can't just have Claude copy.

It helps that it's cheap, I guess, but it also operates in a market small enough that anything with less than minimal time commitment will lose money. That's why there are tens of former competitors who have all shut down now.