Live data from Hacker News

I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

elance.com

11–20 of 88 posts

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#11
post #5

Looks ridiculous at first glance but that's actually not unreasonable. The value in Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo is first and foremost their users. Next is the technical infrastructure to support all of those users. The front-end website and basic functionality of sending and receiving emails isn't that hard of a technical problem. Given the level of intelligence this guy appears to have, an Indian PHP dev on elance who charg…

> an indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour

Stereotyping much?

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#12
post #5

Looks ridiculous at first glance but that's actually not unreasonable. The value in Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo is first and foremost their users. Next is the technical infrastructure to support all of those users. The front-end website and basic functionality of sending and receiving emails isn't that hard of a technical problem. Given the level of intelligence this guy appears to have, an Indian PHP dev on elance who charg…

> an indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour Stereotyping much?

Have you used elance? I've been posting multiple jobs per month for years and 90% of proposals I receive are PHP devs from India that charge ~$10/hour.

That's not a bad thing. Many of those guys are highly skilled and I hire them often.

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#13
post #5

Looks ridiculous at first glance but that's actually not unreasonable. The value in Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo is first and foremost their users. Next is the technical infrastructure to support all of those users. The front-end website and basic functionality of sending and receiving emails isn't that hard of a technical problem. Given the level of intelligence this guy appears to have, an Indian PHP dev on elance who charg…

> an indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour Stereotyping much?

He's not wrong. There is already a proposal, from a indian dev. But in ASP.

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#16
post #7

Is it really THAT unreasonable ? Throw some random open source mail server and web interface, customize et voilà!

Roundcube would probably do the job. The problem is what if the guy says "but this doesn't have feature X that gmail has, add it or I won't pay you."

If you could change the spec to be "install roundcube" then maybe it wouldn't be such a bad deal, but then you're essentially doing the most important part of the work (telling him how to get what he wants) for free.

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#17
Just because you're not in a cubicle doesn't mean that you've escaped the Dilbert comic strip.

Now that the shutdown of Google Reader is in the news, about two weeks ago, someone posted an offer on Elance for a website with a few RSS feeds posted to it. When I made a proposal asking for details, I got an e-mail essentially asking for Google Reader but with a snazzier user interface. Yup, the asking price was "less than $500."

I sent an e-mail in reply pointing this out as diplomatically as I could. A few days later, I got an e-mail saying that the project had been canceled.

It saddens and enrages me to ponder how many people either have so little respect for programmers or so much ignorance of programming that they think that they can get away with this. Would these people try the same thing with lawyers? Or even plumbers?

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#18

Just because you're not in a cubicle doesn't mean that you've escaped the Dilbert comic strip. Now that the shutdown of Google Reader is in the news, about two weeks ago, someone posted an offer on Elance for a website with a few RSS feeds posted to it. When I made a proposal asking for details, I got an e-mail essentially asking for Google Reader but with a snazzier user interface. Yup, the asking price was "less th…

> Would these people try the same thing with lawyers? Or even plumbers?

I'm sure that lawyers and plumbers field questions from people who don't understand what they cost all the time. It's part of doing business.

Re: I want build Email service Website Like Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo (for $500-$1000)

#20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour Stereotyping much?

Have you used elance? I've been posting multiple jobs per month for years and 90% of proposals I receive are PHP devs from India that charge ~$10/hour. That's not a bad thing. Many of those guys are highly skilled and I hire them often.

I heard a story from a friend who works in the oil industry. The Indian dev team had updated the software that controlled the oil flow from a field, but they'd introduced a bug that was losing $5000 (or barrels, memory fails me) a day somehow.

They couldn't roll back to the previous version because they weren't using version control for the software.

I've seen some balls ups from UK teams too fwiw, but nothing that approaches that level of wtf.

Post reply on HN