18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1 • Hacker News Board

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#11

Post by davideous » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

This appears to be working so far.

One sample doesn't really establish a "market rate" yet, so I don't worry about the seller not being motivated by financial profit motive. Sometimes the value provided to the seller goes beyond the financial payment. 18F gets a good deal here because of the intangibles they have to offer.

If they put out more projects than the amount of work people are willing to do at the "$1 volunteer" or "$1 build my portfolio" rate, then the price should go up. How deep is this pool? I guess they will find out.

The big challenge, I think, will be if bad actors start coming in and making crazy bids and then doing sloppy work. Time will tell.

I'm excited to see how this develops.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#12

Post by afarrell » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

ac2u wrote: post #2

> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…

> if another bidder was just trying to get enough to cover the rent.

This line of argument would hold water if the federal government had any kinda of monopsony power on software consulting services. They do not.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#13

Post by ac2u » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #8

ac2u wrote: post #2

> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…

So I take it you believe government should in general be an "employer of last resort", aka using public works projects as mediums of social services.

Nope. Made the assumption that because the price was going down rapidly that there were perhaps a few one-man/woman shops that wanted to do work for a price which was more reasonable than $1.

Edit: Also you took a massive leap of extrapolation on what my views were on a short paragraph. Beyond guessing a possible motivation (foot in door as government contractor), there's nothing pinning my views here on the auctioneer being a government contractor rather than private sector.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#14

Post by ac2u » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 3:57 PM UTC

luma wrote: post #4

ac2u wrote: post #2

> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…

Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use? I get that other people were hoping to be paid for this, but would you end all volunteer programs on account of them interfering with paid labor?

No I wouldn't. But volunteer work is usually commissioned without a price incentive in mind rather than an auction style format.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#15

Post by anm89 » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

luma wrote: post #4

ac2u wrote: post #2

> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…

Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use? I get that other people were hoping to be paid for this, but would you end all volunteer programs on account of them interfering with paid labor?

No one is. If you want to donate your time there are a million non profits that will gladfully take the donation.

There is no reason this process has to devalue everyone else's work on a paid job.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#16

Post by ac2u » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #12

ac2u wrote: post #2

> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…

> if another bidder was just trying to get enough to cover the rent. This line of argument would hold water if the federal government had any kinda of monopsony power on software consulting services. They do not.

My thoughts weren't really centred around arguing that to be honest. It was more to do with the author's tone, which took a rather tone-deaf attitude as to why certain folks were disappointed with the outcome.

The outcome of the auction happened in a way which was allowed by the parameters which defined it.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#17

Post by Bedon292 » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

USNetizen wrote: post #6

The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach ass…

> For commodities, perhaps it works, but for IT you get what you pay for. Is the government bound to accept the lowest bid? When bidding closes, it would make sense to review the lowest bids for noticeable differences in expected quality. If it isn't worth doing that, because expected quality is always high, and prices keep coming low one must consider that the task has become commoditised.

It would depend on the situation. This one, I believe, they were bound to accept the lowest bid. However if the lowest bidder failed to complete the work they could move up the ladder.

Most major contracts are, I think, 'Lowest bidder technically acceptable'. Which requires the bidder to meet minimum guidelines in their quality of work. So price is not the only factor, though it is a major one.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#18

Post by Navarr » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:10 PM UTC

x5n1 wrote: post #5

zeckalpha wrote: post #3

Given the tendency of HN toward libertarian and free market approaches, I've been consistently surprised at the suggestions being made around this. This is free markets gone right: A buyer and seller finding the most efficient price for each.

The seller wasn't going for the profit motive however. The seller simply wanted to work on the project as a volunteer. This is how he facilitated that. There is no profit motive here, and so really it's not even a business transaction, it's a volunteering oppurtunity.

It's still 100% free market.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#19

Post by neogodless » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

USNetizen wrote: post #6

The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach ass…

> but for IT you get what you pay for

> It will help avoid those failure-prone $100M+ acquisitions that are doomed from the start

Clearly, you don't always get what you pay for. The price is not always the value.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#20

Post by ksk » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

Working for free is a luxury for the people not struggling to ends meet.

"Oh, I already got paid elsewhere, but let me work for free and outbid others who are doing this as their primary job" is the unstated context and it feels a tad bit smug and elitist.

Personally, I think that the goal should be to get paid while you work on open source. But, I know that its not an option for everyone.

>I use open source technologies on a daily basis, and this seemed like a great opportunity to give back a little.

If you want to contribute to open source, then please feel free to join an open source project.