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Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#111

Post by gtsop »

dusted wrote: post #62
gtsop wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they would sell below market rate is subject to strategic, legal and even political factors. However, bare in mind there are math involved here. If the market sells 1 ton of iron for 20$ (manual labour) and I manage to get a truck I could either sell 1 ton for 20$ as the others and make more profit than them, or I could sell, let's say 1 ton for 10$. This is a strategic move that would squeeze the competition…

You sell 1 ton for $20, and I sell 1 ton for $10 but thereby increase the demand (for my cheaper iron) more than double, I'm not only going to outsell you in "tonnage" but also earn more cash than you. My cheap iron will make people make things out of iron like never before, things you wouldn't even consider back doing with $20 iron. The scalability of software greatly amplifies this point. It's not the work being do…

> It's not the work being done that creates value, the work must be done, sure, it can be done by anyone.

If you have a great idea, can you covert it to money without working? No. Maybe, you might say, you can sell it to smdy else, thus you made money. Ok. Does this person who bought your idea made any money without putting in any work? No.

I challenge you to become rich by making up a lot of great ideas and doing none of the work. Go ahead.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#112

Post by throwawazh »

I am actually in a similar situation. I work at a big, well known and well paying company (so the salary itself is not the issue). I am just so much more productive as everyone else, for instance it happens often that I produce a lot and then feel like I am overloading my team-mates with pull-requests etc.

What I am struggling with most is that I don't have any incentives to give my best and I'm oftentimes simply bored, because there are not enough high visibility projects for me to work on. I've tried picking-up bits and pieces that are left behind and need to get done, but this does not create any visibility for me and is not valued by others. And I am too tired of stretching things out just so that I have something to do during the week. So like OP I would also like to find a way to be paid for projects and not the time I put into implementing them.

I would be happy to connect with anyone else in a similar situation, email is in the profile.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#113

Post by dusted »

gtsop wrote: post #111
dusted wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sell 1 ton for $20, and I sell 1 ton for $10 but thereby increase the demand (for my cheaper iron) more than double, I'm not only going to outsell you in "tonnage" but also earn more cash than you. My cheap iron will make people make things out of iron like never before, things you wouldn't even consider back doing with $20 iron. The scalability of software greatly amplifies this point. It's not the work being do…

> It's not the work being done that creates value, the work must be done, sure, it can be done by anyone. If you have a great idea, can you covert it to money without working? No. Maybe, you might say, you can sell it to smdy else, thus you made money. Ok. Does this person who bought your idea made any money without putting in any work? No. I challenge you to become rich by making up a lot of great ideas and doing no…

I can do the work, easily, but I can't come up with an _actually_ good idea, which is my point to begin with.

Work = Easy. Good idea = Hard.

Ideas are not good just because someone who has them think they're good, there are lots and lots of bad ideas, and for most of them, their owner is under the illusion that they're good.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#114

Post by davidbanham »

It’s very difficult to get paid a multiple of your colleagues in the same role even if you’re multiples more effective. It’s more possible to command a high day rate as a consultant, so long as you can give people confidence you’re able to deliver.

Another option is fixed price, fixed scope builds. You price in line with the rest of the market, then build it fast and pocket the profit.

Both of these, however, require a lot of work that is Not Programming. You’ll need do some sales, some client management, some project management, etc. That’s the gig, but these things can be fun too.

The big factor is that you’ll be 100% exposed as to whether the high volume of code you’re putting out is all truly effective. Your clients on the above kinds of projects don’t care how much code you wrote and they may never see your PRs. They care if their thing does what they wanted it to do. You have to deliver value, not just code. That can be exhilarating, just make sure you’re ready for it.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#115

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

Have you read Developer Hegemony by Erik Dietrich?

I wish I could tell you it has the full solution to your problems. I don't think it does, but it's well worth the read, because it does such a good job at mapping out the problem space that we have.

His proposed solution is to form what he calls "efficiencier firms", software consultancies that work from a directive of making the client's business more efficient, rather than working from specs like "this button should be blue". I think that's indeed how software developers should operate, but I don't see how you sell that idea to clients, who like you said, expect someone they can treat like an employee and just tell them to shut up and make the buttons blue. They'd take a very big risk to give you money and wait and see what you come up with.

There's also the problem of execution. We have to get a reputation for consistently successful software projects on time and on budget. Which I think is possible given all the tools and literature, but I feel most developers are never get good at it because they are stuck on a few death march projects for their entire careers.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#116

Post by malthuswaswrong »

dusted wrote: post #60
karpierz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent's point is that you don't make money by casting arbitrary spells, you make money by solving problems for people. You happen to solve them by casting spells, but they're not paying you for the spell, they're paying to make the problem go away.

Exactly, and the value gained by solving the problem is going to be larger than the value of the spells that did it. Nobody is going to pay more money for a program than they're going to make from having that program.

There are exceptions. Mostly in the realm of regulations. Sometimes you pay for programming that you simply have to do by law, even if you don't actually want it.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#117

Post by dnautics »

InitialLastName wrote: post #94
dnautics wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are supposed to start your own company This is not always good advice. Maybe you suck at marketing. Maybe you suck at coming up with things people like. Maybe you suck at raising money. Maybe you don't have any network at all. You probably want either a few of these qualities to bootstrap off of, or, start off as a millionaire, before starting a company.

Maybe you have bills to pay, no generational wealth to act as a safety net, and live in a place whose social safety net has been designed to heavily favor employees of large businesses.

For the record, I don't think that's as big a deal. Aside from the generational wealth thing, which I am certain biases the founding type, some of the best founders came about because they had nothing to lose.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#118

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

cryptica wrote: post #73

It's quite unusual to find agency work which rewards good programming. Most agency work involves adding unnecessary complexity and bugs to keep the client coming back for fixes... Then after some time the client becomes dependent on the agency... At that point you can take longer and longer to implement features to bill more and more hours. It rewards bad code. Most software agencies sell labour hours, not quality so…

I agree that this is how the industry works, intentionally delivering garbage to be able to sell more billable hours. But is it the only viable strategy?

What would it take to compete with high quality work instead? Where your repeat business doesn't come from fixing everything you did wrong, but it comes from your reputation of getting it right the first time around?

In a market where there's a surplus of consultants but a shortage of programming problems to solve, it makes sense to milk every client you can find dry, but that's not at all the kind of market we're in. You'd make as much money doing four six-month projects for different clients as you would milking a single one for two years. Or more, since you'd get better at it with each project you complete and may be able to ask for a higher rate, whereas churning out garbage one year after the other teaches you nothing and sets you apart from nobody.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#119

Post by hhmc »

Lascaille wrote: post #100
granitepail wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. If you have the skills, working in a strong fund is the best way to get pay that scales with your contribution.

If being a good programmer equalled being able to write an algorithm that prints money, everyone would be doing it.

There are plenty of well rewarded functions within prop trading that _aren't_ quant trader. Although exactly how correctly remunerated these roles are varies a bit by firm.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#120

Post by [deleted] »

cryptica wrote: post #73

It's quite unusual to find agency work which rewards good programming. Most agency work involves adding unnecessary complexity and bugs to keep the client coming back for fixes... Then after some time the client becomes dependent on the agency... At that point you can take longer and longer to implement features to bill more and more hours. It rewards bad code. Most software agencies sell labour hours, not quality so…

[deleted]
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