The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2024
DN$ ships a working ad-supported DNS resolver as an April Fools' satire of startup hype
A fake startup launches an 'ad-supported, privacy-focused' DNS resolver whose README and roadmap openly plan to sell users out — and the resolver actually runs.
DN$ (adcache)
What it had to solve
Ad-supported DNS is a real sore spot: ISPs and resolvers have been caught injecting ads into DNS answers, and privacy pitches from free services are easy to mock. For April Fools' Day, the joke had to be sharp enough for an audience of developers who live with startup hype and broken privacy promises every day.
How it works
Every April Fools' Day the developer community is flooded with fake product pages, and most are forgettable because there is nothing to do with them. DN$ went the other way: a fake startup selling an 'innovative, privacy-focused, ad-supported DNS resolver', implemented as a genuinely working open-source Rust resolver with a live endpoint that real DNS queries could be pointed at.
The pitch was the joke, told by being too honest. The README promises to cut out the nefarious tracking middlemen 'until we've amassed a critical number of users to exploit', sells a lifetime subscription for reduced ads (a 3% cut), claims safety because it is written in Rust, and lists a roadmap that cycles Golang, Rust and microservices before balking on privacy promises, harvesting user data, laundering crypto and closing as 'not profitable'. The day after launch, an update declared the project deprecated due to 'several lawsuits and criminal investigations'.
Posted as Show HN on 1 April 2024, it drew 294 points and 48 comments. The working demo made the joke participatory: readers ran dig against the resolver and pasted the sponsored TXT records into the thread — 'Meet hot, lonely DNS records in your area tonight', 'Need to launder some money? Invest in our cryptocurrency!' — and one commenter called it brilliant from top to bottom. A smaller thread argued the merits of pranks themselves, which is the fate of any good April Fools' bit.
Why it lands
- The product actually worked, so the joke was discovered rather than explained: every dig query returned real answers plus the punchline ad.
- The clichés were specific to the audience — Rust rewrites, microservice migrations, VC promises, lifetime subscriptions — so developers recognized each one instantly.
- The fictional roadmap let the satire admit what real ad-supported privacy services do only after traction, making the 'confession' the comedy.
- The one-day lifecycle, with a fake corporate shutdown the next morning, gave the parody a complete startup arc instead of a static page.
What it did
Posted on 1 April 2024, the Show HN drew 294 points and 48 comments: commenters actually ran dig against the live resolver and posted the joke ads in replies — 'Meet hot, lonely DNS records in your area tonight' — called it 'brilliant from top to bottom', and debated whether pranks are acceptable. The next day an update declared the project deprecated 'due to several lawsuits and criminal investigations', completing the arc.
What you can take
A parody lands when the audience can play with it: make the fake product actually work, aim at the community's own jargon, and every dig becomes a punchline.
Since then
The thread captured the running joke in real time: readers tried the resolver, quoted its ads, and the builder account stayed in character — offering pre-pre-seed deals, explaining that Rust made the resolver bug-free, and promising to investigate security reports 'in 3-5 years'. The repository kept the source and roadmap online with the April 2 deprecation notice intact, so the artifact remains complete and readable after the joke. Whether it changed anything is beside the point: the parody gave the community a shared object to laugh at a pattern they already recognized.
Sources
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