Now that the shutdown of Google Reader is in the news, about two weeks ago, someone posted an offer on Elance for a website with a few RSS feeds posted to it. When I made a proposal asking for details, I got an e-mail essentially asking for Google Reader but with a snazzier user interface. Yup, the asking price was "less than $500."
I sent an e-mail in reply pointing this out as diplomatically as I could. A few days later, I got an e-mail saying that the project had been canceled.
It saddens and enrages me to ponder how many people either have so little respect for programmers or so much ignorance of programming that they think that they can get away with this. Would these people try the same thing with lawyers? Or even plumbers?
I'm sure that lawyers and plumbers field questions from people who don't understand what they cost all the time. It's part of doing business.
I don't think it should sadden or enrage you. The vast majority of people posting on these sites have very little idea what it takes to get things done, what constitutes quality work, etc. If they see they can get a dev to work on something for $5 / hour and detail what they want and get it delivered, I fail to see how it affects you in any way. There is always going to be a low-end market for developers. If wages in countries currently popular for outsourcing/contracting go up, there will be another group of developing countries with people willing to work for "low" wages.
If you're looking for work, I know at least oDesk allows you to filter based on price, so you don't need to see these types of jobs. I know many people are willing to pay higher wages to experienced designers and developers who do quality work, are reliable, and can easily understand specs and offer expertise. While I imagine a ton of work on these sites are done for $5-10/hour, I do see some people getting paid $50+/hour for their work.
From this point of view, the project and budget is actually quite reasonable.
As a side note: I'm not a user of zite, feedly (sp?), or flipboard, and I can't stand these magazine-like interfaces. It seems to me, people that want that sort of interface never want to see the RSS acronym, nor know what it is/ how it works.
With news of one year old startups getting acquired for billions Everybody wants to be a web entrepreneur. :) During my freelancing days I have seen a lot of such requests, and they never actually get awarded because someone sensible will write a comment saying you can't build such a service for that amount and that the front end they see is just the tip of the iceberg and there are costs involved in running the servers and getting users and all.
But there are some who go ahead and in fact at places like scriptcopy.com you will find clone scripts for almost anything - Facebook, eBay, Hotmail. I have seen someone selling Yahoo clone script for $20! Some even provide hosting. Go figure!
Think about it, there are two of you working on two maybe three pages. So you're telling me that you need more than 100 hours (because of course, it's a start up, and we're on "salary" - so yeah, overtime) to build TWO PAGES! My opinion it should take one, maybe two days max.
I don't think you guys have the drive to be working at a startup (<- heard this before)
Nootropics like ritalin are like steroids in the 70s. NOT studied well enough and they come with a price.
As stupid as what I described is, I bet it would appeal to the people who think you can clone something like that for $500. Scope is everything!
Problem is, how does one define "all features". Does it mean all the obvious features, like the ability to list an item and have people buy/bid on it.
Or do they want an actual replica of ebay complete with all the anti-fraud stuff that ebay must have and all of the seller account controls etc?
Obviously there's a huge difference between the two, but you won't get much more detail from them than "I just want all the features, should be simple".
So yes, you can probably make an "ebay clone" in a day or two, but what happens if they refuse to pay because it doesn't have some advanced feature that ebay does?
I don't know what 'complete structure details' even means but I assume it means something they could toss to another developer for the excuse of paying them less and the schmucks who apply nothing at all. I've already made the mistake of completing a "test" of putting together a couple of email templates for a job that then magically never materialized after I was "awarded" it.
I will point you to my github and linkedin profile, but you're not getting free work.
If you could change the spec to be "install roundcube" then maybe it wouldn't be such a bad deal, but then you're essentially doing the most important part of the work (telling him how to get what he wants) for free.
This is why I don't look for work on these sites. I'm literally better off just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring.
The value in Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo is first and foremost their users. Next is the technical infrastructure to support all of those users. The front-end website and basic functionality of sending and receiving emails isn't that hard of a technical problem.
Given the level of intelligence this guy appears to have, an Indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour could probably build something in 50-100 hours that would support far more users than this guy would ever be able to attract and they would both be happy with the transaction.
Stereotyping much?
I'd actually be curious to find out how these operations actually work. Are they solo devs just casting a massive net ? Solo devs actually outsourcing responding to gigs? Agencies applying for as many jobs as possible and subcontracting them out or having employees on staff to do the work?
That's not a bad thing. Many of those guys are highly skilled and I hire them often.
