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

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

#21

Post by username223 »

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?

> Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use?

Ayn frowns upon altruism, and lots of coders (heart) Ayn.

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

#22

Post by ac2u »

ksk wrote: post #20

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 technolo…

Put more succinctly that I did in my comment, where a lot of folks extrapolated my comments on the tone of the article to a full blown commentary on the free market.

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

#23

Post by mdpopescu »

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.

I upvoted you for the "this is free markets gone right" part, but I have no idea where you're seeing "a tendency of HM toward libertarian and free market approaches". Every time the issue comes up, I'm seeing about 90% comments against it. Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads :)

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

#24

Post by iaw »

Navarr wrote: post #18
x5n1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a lot of crappy things that are 100% free market. Oligopolies come to mind. Just because it's a free market solution doesn't mitigate the negative experiences this person created for the other bidders.

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

#25

Post by TurboHaskal »

mdpopescu wrote: post #23
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.

I upvoted you for the "this is free markets gone right" part, but I have no idea where you're seeing "a tendency of HM toward libertarian and free market approaches". Every time the issue comes up, I'm seeing about 90% comments against it. Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads :)

Such tendency exists, depending on your timezone.

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

#27

Post by x5n1 »

iaw wrote: post #24
Navarr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still 100% free market.

There's a lot of crappy things that are 100% free market. Oligopolies come to mind. Just because it's a free market solution doesn't mitigate the negative experiences this person created for the other bidders.

Well the problem is self correcting. People will stop giving quality bids if they don't think that there is any profit to be made because a bunch of volunteers have destroyed the market. There is no problem here. Only that anyone bidding should be aware that they won't get properly compensated for their work and time.

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

#28

Post by jerf »

iaw wrote: post #24
Navarr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still 100% free market.

There's a lot of crappy things that are 100% free market. Oligopolies come to mind. Just because it's a free market solution doesn't mitigate the negative experiences this person created for the other bidders.

Just because someone said "free market" doesn't mean you are obligated to recite the generic Litany Against Free Markets. The specific point here is that in a free market you are welcome to decide to volunteer to do something. Nothing about "free markets" prevents it. If you judge yourself to receive more utility from volunteering, then go ahead and do it. No central organization will stop you.

The idea that free markets "obligates greed", in a particular cartoon-villain sense of greed, is propaganda, not what the theory actually says. (Now, we can have a very profitable discussion about whether and where it enables greed, or perhaps structurally encourages it, and some interesting conversations on whether "encourages greed" is even necessarily always bad. But there is no way in which one is obligated to greed, such that you are somehow betraying some sort of ideal if you decide for your own reasons to act altruistically.)

I'm sort of amused at the number of people getting peeved about this. This person is volunteering to work for nearly-free for government civil service... if you are anti-capitalism or anti-free market and think people should be doing more for and with government... isn't that exactly what this is?

Are we really going to try to spin "someone volunteered to help the government with something" into "free markets are evil"? It seems to get rather into the "doth protest too much, methinks" domain.

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

#29

Post by kbenson »

ksk wrote: post #20

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 technolo…

> and it feels a tad bit smug and elitist

Saying that about someone who wants to help out so essentially volunteers their time to help a government project, which in essence means it helps everyone, seems a bit entitled and ill-informed.

I'm sure many people want to get paid to work on open source, but it's a free market, and people will bid what they think a project is worth, and worth isn't always about monetary compensation.

Complaining about this is essentially the same as complaining about soup-kitchen volunteers. Surely there are plenty of people that would love to be paid for that job, but we have all these smug elitist volunteers doing the jobs for free.

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

The people that start/work on a specific open source project have the right to ask for compensation in whatever way they like, or enforce it through their license. You have no right to speak for all open source projects.

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

#30

Post by ksk »

kbenson wrote: post #29
ksk wrote: post #20

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 technolo…

> and it feels a tad bit smug and elitist Saying that about someone who wants to help out so essentially volunteers their time to help a government project, which in essence means it helps everyone, seems a bit entitled and ill-informed. I'm sure many people want to get paid to work on open source, but it's a free market, and people will bid what they think a project is worth, and worth isn't always about monetary co…

>Complaining about this is essentially the same as complaining about soup-kitchen volunteers.

No, it is not the same thing at all. People volunteer for organizations because the organizations DO NOT have the resources to pay them because all their money goes into buying goods and what not.

When you bid $1 and work for free, you're saying I don't want the money you're willing to pay. To fail to understand this basic difference is silly.

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