Margins on website development are shrinking • Hacker News Board

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#41

Post by commentzorro » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:18 PM UTC

gwgarry wrote: post #34

dworin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor doesn't work for two reasons. First, over time a car has grown MORE complex, while the tools to create a website have grown LESS complex. At the same time, improved quality in engines, motor oil, and service technology has made routine maintenance not only easier, but also less expensive. Second, auto repair, like most skilled trades, is a great example where specialization of workers gets involved. It'…

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

Hey, no problem. Me and about a dozen friends only have around 3-5 years of experience but are more than happy to do the work for about 1/3 the price you want to charge. If they don't want to pay your rates send 'em our way!

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#42

Post by jiggy2011 » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:18 PM UTC

gwgarry wrote: post #34

dworin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor doesn't work for two reasons. First, over time a car has grown MORE complex, while the tools to create a website have grown LESS complex. At the same time, improved quality in engines, motor oil, and service technology has made routine maintenance not only easier, but also less expensive. Second, auto repair, like most skilled trades, is a great example where specialization of workers gets involved. It'…

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

In the case of Wordpress, the cost of labour for development and bug fixes on those thousands of lines (to the client) is effectively free unless you are extending it.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#43

Post by goostavos » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:20 PM UTC

gwgarry wrote: post #34

dworin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor doesn't work for two reasons. First, over time a car has grown MORE complex, while the tools to create a website have grown LESS complex. At the same time, improved quality in engines, motor oil, and service technology has made routine maintenance not only easier, but also less expensive. Second, auto repair, like most skilled trades, is a great example where specialization of workers gets involved. It'…

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

Out of curiosity (not being snarky), how's that working out for you, and how long do you think it will be viable to charge that amount?

Web dev, as I see it, is undergoing a race to the bottom. As you say, "the stupid people" are generating good content for free. Yes, there are 1000s of lines of code behind WP.. but those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with them. Do people really pay 1000 to adjust a word press theme?

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#44

Post by belorn » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

aharrison wrote: post #29

taeric wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, if you have the time and the room, it really does make a lot of sense to learn some items in care repair. Similarly, being a fully trained plumber is a daunting task. Fixing most problems in your bathroom is actually straight forward. Of course, some of this comes down to a value judgement. How much is it worth it to you, personally, to not have to mess with a broken toilette? :)

One thing I don't see people talk about enough in the context of home or car repair is liability. Not only do I not want to mess with a broken toilet, but if I screw up and flood my bathroom, it is my fault. If the plumber does it (less likely because they know what they are doing) then they are on the hook. For some things the cost of failure is low, but for many, especially when being paid a programmers salary, the…

The hinted solution then is for webshops to provide some form of liability protection for the client.

If the website is buggy (like a leaking pipe), its the webshops fault and reponsibility to fix. If personal information was leaked thanks to bugs in the website (ie, the leaky pipe caused a flooding), then again the webshop is responsible.

If a customer know that they are not responsible to maintain the website security and protection of data records from customers, then I suspect many would be willing to pay quite nicely for not being "on the hook" if something goes wrong.

To make that economical possible for the webshop, we might need to utilize regulations. With plumbers, they are forced to be liable, so everyone is competing with that assumption. It is always part of the price, and they don't have to compete with non-liable plumbers that can undercut the price.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#45

Post by goostavos » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

Vivtek wrote: post #35

taeric wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it really depends on the "fix". Most toilette problems can be fixed by a simple $5 part from the store. Hell, the last time a pilot light was out at my place, the plumber literally just scrubbed it with a wire brush. Just calling him out was $130. And no, I did not feel ripped off. So, yes, there can be liability concerns. But there is also the line of thinking where "everyone should know how to cut the water t…

Ha. Scrubbing with a wire brush is worth a dollar - knowing what to scrub with a wire brush was definitely worth $130, right?

I know your joking, but I feel like this is an important thing that's often lost on people. The other day I got in a bit of an argument on oDesk because I turned around a job too quickly. The guy didn't think it was worth the price we agreed upon. I had to explain that that wasn't a 15 minute fix, that was years of studying in university, and years of trial and error, and hard won experience to know how to solve his problem in 15 minutes.

He stiffed me in the end...

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#46

Post by _k » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

didgeoridoo wrote: post #14

All the tools mentioned in the article are mainly useful to the bottom of the market; low-budget customers can now put together something half-decent on their own. If anything, this is GREAT for us as web developers. We've taken to pointing prospects to ThemeForest if we don't think a custom site would add significant value to their company. It keeps us from having to do boring & repetitive work, so we can focus on t…

The fun high-impact stuff rarely drives the customer's bottom line.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#47

Post by gwgarry » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

goostavos wrote: post #43

gwgarry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

Out of curiosity (not being snarky), how's that working out for you, and how long do you think it will be viable to charge that amount? Web dev, as I see it, is undergoing a race to the bottom. As you say, "the stupid people" are generating good content for free. Yes, there are 1000s of lines of code behind WP.. but those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with them. Do people…

> generating good content for free

They are not generating it for free. They sell themes at $50 pop to at least 100 people. They make their $5,000. They also charge $100/hr for support.

> those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with the

Until things break. The developer goes away, etc.

> Do people really pay 1000 to adjust a word press theme?

Depends on what level of adjustment. If I charge them $1000 they will get $1,000 worth of services. But I am not willing to engage a client unless they are at least willing to spend that much. Not worth my time.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#48

Post by thatcherclay » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

I think the most valuable thing this is pointing out is that the nature of the problem is shifting to an integration challenge - how to hook together the 5 or 6 services that I will need to get everything up and running. Most web driven businesses are going to need some combination of different technologies at some point - the people who can orchestrate that well are in a good position.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#49

Post by gwgarry » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

commentzorro wrote: post #41

gwgarry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

Hey, no problem. Me and about a dozen friends only have around 3-5 years of experience but are more than happy to do the work for about 1/3 the price you want to charge. If they don't want to pay your rates send 'em our way!

There are also people in the third world that will apparently do it for $5/hr until what you get are shit results that are an embarrassment to look at.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#50

Post by ChrisHardie » Mon, May 20, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

Hi, original article author here. Thanks for the great comments and feedback. I just appended my post to say:

I probably should have used a question mark in my post title instead of an asterisk. I don't claim to know the future and I get that I'm talking about an industry and an area of tech that's unpredictable. I've no need to be "right" about this and am just glad to have started some conversations.

I probably also should have referred to something like "generalist retail website development for the masses" instead of just "website development." One part of my current company that is still going strong is a business unit that's performing hundreds of hours per month of custom software development, database management and consulting for a client pioneering a unique problem space where no off-the-shelf tool is going to do the trick. We just had challenges replicating that scale of project within our company, but that's been more about roadblocks to growing the way we wanted to than it has to do with the nature of the industry overall. I fully agree with the commenters who note that at the higher end of client and project requirements when it comes to creativity and complexity, there's still a great need for professional service providers with a broad range of experience and deep knowledge. As I tried to say in my post, I think the folks working with bigger budget clients and projects will have plenty of work for the foreseeable future, even if under a different name from "website developers."

Thanks for reading.