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Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

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Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#201

Post by rgbrenner »

zackify wrote: post #181
rgbrenner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$400k pays for 3 people.. maybe a couple of more if you hire from a cheaper country. If all GIMP needed was a few more developers to be competitive against PS, that would have happened by now. You're seriously underestimating the amount of work GIMP needs to do.. and/or the amount of work that already goes into GIMP.

I wish my company spent 400k per 3 employees.

I was assuming non-sf salaries... but yes, even then, it's really pushing it to say it would pay for 3 people in the us. I was being generous.

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#202

Post by paultopia »

falcolas wrote: post #119
sanbor wrote: post #52

Photoshop license costs $348 a year. If 1000 people get together and put $400 each, you'll get $400000. That money could be used to leverage a Gimp to be more Photoshop-users friendly. Then you don't have to keep with the subscription model. You have a great piece of open source software available for everyone to use as long as they want. You can do another round to get more features added. This solves the issue that…

I'll be the negative Nancy here - you'll never get 1000 people to pay $400 each for any OSS software, no matter the price of the competitor. The reason is a simple value estimation. It's open source (and so free to get) therefore its price is $0. Any product that is free signals that the product has correspondingly low value. I think it's simply unrealistic to expect people to put forward $400 for something with such…

Yeah. This is a classic free rider problem. Game theorists have known about it for decades. See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action.

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#203

Post by [deleted] »

15155 wrote: post #117
orcdork wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't pay your doctor $75 for sticking a needle in your arm, you pay him for his knowledge not to stick the needle in the wrong place. Looks like we've got full circle considering this same logic was applied to devs for ages.

This analogy is driving me crazy, heh, but I can't resist: Flu shots are generally intramuscular, you literally just jab it into your bicep. A layperson can do it with high probabilities of success just by reading the instructions on the box. Indeed, pharmacists administer these all over the US.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#204

Post by iDemonix »

BoorishBears wrote: post #2

This looks like such a cool idea, but already you see that the problems presented seem to be seriously underestimating how complicated what they're trying to do is. For example, detecting specific text in an image? 10 minutes in OpenCV. Detecting any text at all in any format in an image? I don't even know where to start. Maybe 10 minutes in OpenCV if they constrain the kind of text, otherwise ML? It feels like an un…

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1425

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#205

Post by Gurrewe »

austenallred wrote: post #176
sanbor wrote: post #52

Photoshop license costs $348 a year. If 1000 people get together and put $400 each, you'll get $400000. That money could be used to leverage a Gimp to be more Photoshop-users friendly. Then you don't have to keep with the subscription model. You have a great piece of open source software available for everyone to use as long as they want. You can do another round to get more features added. This solves the issue that…

Crowdfunding open source seems like a good idea in general (in fact I could see a platform built around that specifically), but you may be underestimating the amount of money/effort required to build something comparable to Photoshop. So I like the idea in principle, but not in this particular instance. For what it's worth, I think Sketch is much more user friendly and is $99 one-time. Certainly not OSS, but a better…

I've seen some cases where patreon.com is used to fund open source projects. Vue.js is founded there for example [1].

1: https://www.patreon.com/evanyou

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#206

Post by pkamb »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #199
pkamb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- I don't want to own the resulting code. Open Source delivery, or a link to someone else's extension that accomplishes the goal. - Payment on the order of $10 for some simple script, not $300+. They can make up the difference via multiple bounties, selling to multiple people, etc. - Public question that can be found by others with the same problem (who can upvote or add to the bounty), as well as people who are able…

I understand what you're getting at, but the price is an issue. I do something similar: I write very small programs for embedded systems: simple timers, sequencers, alarms, etc. for around $100. In some cases, we're talking 15 minutes of work, tops. If I could charge just $30 and instead sell it to multiple people, I would, but the odds of that happening are so slim, I have to have a $100 minimum. The problem is that…

I definitely understand the price issue. It might not be a lucrative or attractive business for existing freelancers.

BUT... people already do this stuff for free. Create free Chrome Extensions to make some tweak on a website. Spend hours crafting a script for an answer on Stack Overflow, only to get fake internet points.

I asked the questions above on SuperUser, a website that theoretically does exactly what I'm asking. Someone will probably eventually post a solution, someday. It just takes too long. The site doesn't get enough traffic because no one is getting paid to do the work.

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#207

Post by GoToRO »

falcolas wrote: post #119
sanbor wrote: post #52

Photoshop license costs $348 a year. If 1000 people get together and put $400 each, you'll get $400000. That money could be used to leverage a Gimp to be more Photoshop-users friendly. Then you don't have to keep with the subscription model. You have a great piece of open source software available for everyone to use as long as they want. You can do another round to get more features added. This solves the issue that…

I'll be the negative Nancy here - you'll never get 1000 people to pay $400 each for any OSS software, no matter the price of the competitor. The reason is a simple value estimation. It's open source (and so free to get) therefore its price is $0. Any product that is free signals that the product has correspondingly low value. I think it's simply unrealistic to expect people to put forward $400 for something with such…

Also, Free software, creates a large tree at $0 that will kill everything that tries to grow under it, like a $5 decent alternative (nothing grows under large trees).

Re: Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project

#208

Post by ianai »

rgbrenner wrote: post #134
sanbor wrote: post #52

Photoshop license costs $348 a year. If 1000 people get together and put $400 each, you'll get $400000. That money could be used to leverage a Gimp to be more Photoshop-users friendly. Then you don't have to keep with the subscription model. You have a great piece of open source software available for everyone to use as long as they want. You can do another round to get more features added. This solves the issue that…

$400k pays for 3 people.. maybe a couple of more if you hire from a cheaper country. If all GIMP needed was a few more developers to be competitive against PS, that would have happened by now. You're seriously underestimating the amount of work GIMP needs to do.. and/or the amount of work that already goes into GIMP.

The question isn't whether 400k would make gimp replace PS. The question is whether 400k could get the users who contributed the features they want. It still is a gamble but it's more attainable.
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