Cloud Phone Highly Upvoted on Zhihu: A Hardcore Tool for Side Hustlers

Why Are Side Hustle Experts on Zhihu All Using Cloud Phones?

If you frequently browse Zhihu, you’ve surely noticed the rising buzz around the topic “cloud phones.” Whether it’s people in cross-border e-commerce, social media marketing, or gaming studios grinding for in-game currency, they all keep mentioning keywords like “multi-opening,” “anti-association,” and “24/7 auto-run” in their answers.

The logic is simple: the core of making money from side hustles is balancing efficiency and risk control. You need to operate more accounts with fewer devices and lower costs, all while ensuring those accounts aren’t banned by platforms. Traditional physical phone solutions come with high purchase costs, troublesome maintenance, and the risk of losing everything if accounts are flagged for association.

Cloud phones solve this pain point perfectly. In essence, a cloud phone is a virtual phone running in the cloud. You can remotely control it from your computer or phone, install apps, browse the web, and send/receive text messages just like a real device. More importantly, it supports unlimited multi-opening, and each cloud phone has its own unique hardware fingerprint, fundamentally preventing account association.

Among the many cloud phone platforms, Nestbox is becoming the go-to “side hustle tool” among Zhihu users, thanks to its deep focus on underlying technology. Next, I’ll break down how cloud phones can help you make money in four mainstream side hustle scenarios and why Nestbox is worth choosing.

Scenario 1: The Account Matrix Tool for Cross-Border E-Commerce

Cross-border e-commerce has long moved past the “one computer to rule them all” era. Whether it’s Amazon, eBay, or Southeast Asia’s Shopee and Lazada, platforms have strict monitoring mechanisms for multi-account operations. Once the backend algorithm detects multiple accounts logging in from the same IP or device, you could face anything from traffic throttling and ranking penalties to outright store bans.

In the past, sellers commonly used “one phone, one account” setups, which meant massive inventory and equipment costs. For a 20-person team, just buying phones could cost 100,000 RMB, not to mention electricity, network fees, and manual maintenance.

Using cloud phones changes everything. Each cloud phone simulates the hardware environment of a real device, including IMEI, MAC address, Wi-Fi module ID, etc., and they are completely isolated. You can easily manage a dozen or even dozens of store accounts on a single computer screen. Combined with API interfaces and RPA automation scripts, you can also batch upload products, auto-reply, monitor orders, and more.

Take Nestbox as an example: its 99.95% uptime means you’ll almost never experience disconnections or lag, which is crucial for sellers who need real-time store monitoring. An Amazon seller from Shenzhen shared on Zhihu: “I used to have trouble sleeping at night, worried about issues with my stores. After switching to cloud phones, all my stores are managed from one backend, running 24/7. If something goes wrong, automation scripts handle it.” This stability and automation have directly reduced labor costs by 70%.

Scenario 2: Multi-Account Matrices and RPA Automation for Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is another area where cloud phones shine. Whether it’s domestic platforms like WeChat and Douyin, or overseas ones like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, marketers need to manage multiple accounts in batches for lead generation, viral growth, and conversions. But platforms are cracking down hard on multi-account behavior, especially with device fingerprint association detection, causing many manual operators to frequently fail.

Here’s the pain point: You’ve spent three months carefully cultivating an account, only to have it flagged as a “marketing account” and banned, wiping out all the customer resources you’ve accumulated. That’s a cost any content creator can’t afford.

The core value cloud phones provide is physical-level independent fingerprint isolation. With Nestbox’s architecture, each cloud phone runs on its own independent virtual instance, with fully customizable hardware fingerprints, browser caches, cookies, and device language. It truly achieves “one computer, dozens of real people.”

Another pain point in social media marketing is the amount of repetitive work: liking, commenting, sending DMs, batch adding friends… These tasks can all be replaced by RPA automation. You just configure automation scripts on the cloud phone—for example, scheduling 10 posts on a social feed daily, or automatically replying to users who type certain keywords.

Nestbox comes with a flexible RPA engine that supports screen recording and action sequence recording. Even without coding skills, you can build workflows by dragging and dropping. A Zhihu user tested it: previously, one employee could maintain at most 5 accounts per day. After switching to automation, one person easily manages 50 accounts—a 10x efficiency boost. And the 24/7 online nature of cloud phones ensures these scripts run around the clock, uninterrupted by computer shutdowns or network disconnections.

Scenario 3: Zero-Barrier Entry for Game Grinding and Studios

Game grinding is one of the most classic use cases for cloud phones and one of the most direct side hustle monetization methods. Whether it’s ghost-catching and ring-running in Fantasy Westward Journey, double-gathering and mining in World of Warcraft, or auto-farming in Diablo: Immortal, the essence is trading lots of time for in-game resources and then cashing them out.

But game grinding has a major flaw: you need tons of devices. One physical phone can only run one game account. Stacking dozens of phones not only takes up space but also requires stable power and Wi-Fi, not to mention heat dissipation issues. Some old-school studios even rent offices just to house phone walls, with ridiculously high costs.

Cloud phones completely change this model. You don’t need to buy physical phones; you just rent virtual devices in the cloud. A high-performance computer or tablet can simultaneously control dozens of cloud phones via a browser or client. Each cloud instance acts like an independent player, without interference.

The core efficiency of game grinding comes from “time” and “stability.” Nestbox’s round-the-clock operation ensures your character can farm, gather, and run tasks nonstop—something no physical device can match. What’s more, Nestbox charges by the minute, so you only pay for what you use. If you want to test the waters in game grinding, rent 10 phones for a day and see how it goes; it’ll cost just a few dozen RMB. If you actually make money, you can scale up.

A Zhihu user in the gaming section shared his success story: “Before, with physical phones, my monthly electricity bill was over 800 RMB, and I always worried about phones breaking down. After switching to Nestbox, my monthly cost is under 300 RMB, and efficiency is even higher—no crashes, no overheating, stable 24/7 operation.” With daily earnings ranging from 200 to 500 RMB, it’s a low-barrier entry for beginners with limited funds.

Scenario 4: Automation Made Easy for Tech Newbies

Many people get intimidated by the word “automation” and think it’s only for programmers. But that’s not the case. The RPA automation in the cloud phone era has become very user-friendly.

Take the most common example of mass messaging on social apps. You need to send a promotional message with an image to potential customers on WeChat or WhatsApp. Doing it manually might take an hour for 10 accounts, dealing with captchas and traffic limits along the way. Using automation scripts on cloud phones, you can pre-record a set of actions—open contacts, select a contact, paste content, send—and then sync those actions across all cloud phones simultaneously.

This is the “unlimited multi-opening + task sync” combo of Nestbox. You only need to perform the operation once on the master device, and Nestbox syncs it to all child devices, doubling efficiency. Plus, each cloud phone has an independent hardware fingerprint, so the platform sees a batch of real users online at the same time, not bots cheating. This greatly reduces the risk of bans.

For tasks that require high frequency and low error rates, automation doesn’t just boost efficiency—it completely restructures the business model. You no longer need to hire lots of people for boring repetitive work; instead, you can focus on strategy and content creation.

Summary: Cloud Phones Are Accelerators for Side Hustle Income

Back to the original Zhihu question: why are side hustle experts all using cloud phones? The answer is clear—they solve the three core challenges of multi-account management, device association, and cost control. You can manage several dozen phones with one account, without buying physical devices, worrying about electricity or network issues, and you can offload repetitive tasks to the cloud with automation scripts.

Of course, there are many cloud phone platforms on the market. Some are just virtual machines with easy-to-penetrate hardware fingerprints; others are unstable with high dropout rates. Nestbox is repeatedly recommended by Zhihu users because it excels in “independent hardware fingerprint anti-association” and “24/7 stable operation.” Combined with flexible per-minute billing, even beginners new to side hustles can try a small-scale test without any burden.

If you’re looking for a low-barrier, high-return side hustle method, why not start with one cloud phone? You might discover that making money can indeed be more efficient.