This Is Upsetting

[Ocean Man]

Development skills for $3-5/h should never be acceptable.

 

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[Dr. Fastlane]

I doubt he will find anyone worthy at that price.

I live in India, so am aware how cheap human resources can get. Never this cheap though.

Finding a decent coder for $15 is very much possible.

PS. "Decent" is a subjective term.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I'm all for finding the best price for your needs, but yea, it's ridiculous, shameful, and disgusting.

Guy who posted such an ad should be slapped.

And it casts entrepreneurs as people who are greedy and would "burn the rain forest down for a profit", supporting the evil capitalist narrative.

 

[ApparentHorizon]

$400/mo is an average salary in some countries, at a full time 9-5.

For all other cases, it's a good entry point for someone looking to get their foot in the door.

I'm no longer on UpWork, but my first job on there was for $25 to put together a landing page, which I charge $2k for now.

 

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[ZF Lee]

View attachment 25030
Development skills for $3-5/h should never be acceptable.

I'm curious to know how much profit the prospect hopes to earn.

Judging by the saddeningly low price-point, he must have very low expectations.

Then I would see if I can charge a percentage of that.

Other times I would just simply check for the highest to intermediate price on Upwork to give me a few ideas on a good price. I'm sure the good prices won't be $3-$5.

Have these F*ckers have no clue how much time is spent to perfect the code? I myself had to wrestle a SIMPLE optimization problem on R for my business modelling assignment at college for ONE WHOLE DAY, and by the time I was done, it didn't look like anything my lecturer taught.

Don't tell me people are still lining up around the corner for the job...

 

[drpeppehr]

It really is a shame. One hour working at McDonalds and you make 3-4 times as much. However, there is a silver lining to jobs like this - if you were someone with no experience programming whatsoever, it's a good way of adding work to your resume.

 

[Deleted50669]

Considering someone offered me > $100K a year to use that very stack (along with the app I built that has no user base), yea, that's dirt cheap and unbelievably shortsighted.

 

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[happiness2go]

Don't see how this is a problem.

Someone, somewhere will be happy for this "opportunity".

As one of the previous posts mentions, think of countries with an average salary of $200.

Now take someone there with little experience. At a rate of $4/hour and a 40 hour work week he or she would earn $640/month.

Thats 3x the average salary in his/her country.

 

[Ocean Man]

Don't see how this is a problem.

Someone, somewhere will be happy for this "opportunity".

As one of the previous posts mentions, think of countries with an average salary of $200.

Now take someone there with little experience. At a rate of $4/hour and a 40 hour work week he or she would earn $640/month.

Thats 3x the average salary in his/her country.

When people quote this low, it drives other job requests lower. I do not use UpWork. I was checking out the marketplace and seeing the job offers for things like copywriting and software development. When you see things dirt-cheap like this, it makes others think that they can get away with it as well. Then when it comes time to do a larger project that requires the skills, they'll be tremendously undervalued because of jobs like this.

Would you say, I'll pay you $4/5 hour for someone who performs surgery on me? Or find a lawyer for $4/5/hour? Yes, this is seen as an "opportunity" for other countries. But I'm sure other countries want to be paid more for their skills if they can as well.

There's a difference between hiring a VA for $4-5h to respond to your Instagram/Facebook comments. And developing a frontend-backend system.

 

[happiness2go]

Would you say, I'll pay you $4/5 hour for someone who performs surgery on me? Or find a lawyer for $4/5/hour? Yes, this is seen as an "opportunity" for other countries. But I'm sure other countries want to be paid more for their skills if they can as well.

Sure, everyone around the world "wants" to earn more.

But you can't just ignore economic realities.

This race to the bottom with prices is an inevitable outcome of globalization. There is always someone who can do the same thing cheaper than you. This is the flip-side of any kind of work, which can be done remotely.

 

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[Ocean Man]

Sure, everyone around the world "wants" to earn more.

But you can't just ignore economic realities.

This race to the bottom with prices is an inevitable outcome of globalization. There is always someone who can do the same thing cheaper than you. This is the flip-side of any kind of work, which can be done remotely.

I guess.

What you pay for is what you’ll get. If you’d like to pay the lowest dollar than go right ahead.

 

[astr0]

What you pay for is what you’ll get.

Yes, and just think of who will bid on 3-5/hr and why they won't just ignore it. It's not about average salary in the country. Why would someone do the job for 5 if they can find something on upwork for 30+?
The only reason I see is they can't.
Bad English, low skills, no experience, etc.

P. S. Average salary here is around 300, but for software developers its 900-5k+ with around 3k average.

 

[StrikingViper69]

What's the problem with this?

If a coder doesn't want it, then they don't have to accept it.

If coders are literally a dime a dozen, then that is the market.

No-one is entitled to $X/month, if you can get a better price for your skills then go get a better price.

 

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[theag]

Damn, I'm paying way too much at 50-150€/h...

 

[scottmsul]

LOL you get what you pay for. Even IF there was someone willing to work for that low, they'll probably have no skills, no experience, etc. That employer will spend way more in the long run with poor quality/buggy code, badly designed websites, slower development times, and employees that jump ship as soon as they build skills and become competitive.