[thelist] RentACoder

Kenneth gknnth at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 17 04:00:44 CDT 2006


I happened to come across some old threads (2003) on this list about RentACoder. I don't have time to look at every single thread but after a brief look it appears that most of the coders were complaining loudly and very upset that coders in India were pricing them out of the market. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
   
  Well, I'm an overseas American expat micro-business owner with a 25-year bilingual, information software security business management background and my vested opinion with regards to all this cry baby stuff is  -- tough. You've done it to yourselves. You might not like what I have to say but frankly speaking I don't give a damn. Why? Because I've tried very, very hard to give my small business to American coders. And I have given business to the tune of more than a $1000 just to barely start with. And that's certainly not all of it. My entire project will run into the mid to high thousands of US$ or more, over the entire life of the project. Who knows? It could be in the tens of thousands of dollars. I not only need coding but long term ongoing technical support. I need a first-class, intelligent, hard working, business wise coder. And I respect coders. I love to watch'em work their magic. I wish I could code myself then I wouldn't need to deal with all this crapola. 
   
  But what do I have to show for my investment as a "patriotic" businessman? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. I've been ripped off by nothing but deceitful promises from American coders to date. I've never, in my entire business life, seen such pernicious arrogance and deceit among a group of professionals who say they can design web sites. It's my truth. It's my reality. Like it or not, flame me I don't give a Tinkers Damn but that's what I've experienced. 
   
  So Americans get 50-60K a year? And coders from India get 15K? What do you expect? Market forces _must_ prevail. This is the Internet and the world is shrinking in case you haven't heard and the Internet gives us small fry the chance to shop around for the very best deal -- regardless of borders or a bunch of flag waving stupidity. Why, should I, as a small struggling businessman, working 12-18/hrs a day seven days a week to make ends meet pay a US coder $3000 for something that I can get for $300 in India or somewhere else? And the support quality is precisely the same or better. Are you going to underwrite my operating expenses so I can do this? Send me a check for the difference between $3000 and $300 and you can have the project. I guarantee you. 
   
  The problem, as I see it, is that most coders don't have any common sense business sense and think their skills are something so rare, so extremely diamond like special that the world should be knocking their door down to pay for it. Or if they can get any customers by posting to RentACoder they end up losing them with extreme overpricing, plain arrogance and outright deceit. 
    
   
  Pay someone $3000-$5000 per task or $80/$150 an hour for a snippet of something because they can write code in .php/Java/HTML or whatever? But then pay Japanese English translators with 25 years of experience $.25/ a word to translate 25 pages of technical software documents or $3000 to translate an ENTIRE 300-page book to English? More extreme crapola. The J > E translator should be the one getting the $3000 for a few translation burps.  
   
  All of this reminds of a nuclear medicine physician specialist that studies for 15 years to get a Ph.D then can't even balance their checkbooks. Running a small business takes money. My money. My very, very very hard earned money. And I have no, no intention of wasting any more of it on sloppy coding subservice. Period.    

 		
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