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Margins on website development are shrinking

chrishardie.com

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Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#71

Post by ScottBurson »

te_chris wrote: post #68
te_chris wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I've made a similar transition and I'll say one thing: we web people at least don't have to deal with declining customer incomes. The worst part about being in the audio (live and recorded) biz was not only the bottom up effect, but the fact that the ROI of the average recording was plummeting (at least from where I was sitting, for the artists I was working with). People/Clients still make money on the…

How did I say anything worth being downvoted here?

Beats me. Maybe someone misclicked; it happens. I've upvoted you, FWIW.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#72

Post by kevincennis »

te_chris wrote: post #68
te_chris wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I've made a similar transition and I'll say one thing: we web people at least don't have to deal with declining customer incomes. The worst part about being in the audio (live and recorded) biz was not only the bottom up effect, but the fact that the ROI of the average recording was plummeting (at least from where I was sitting, for the artists I was working with). People/Clients still make money on the…

How did I say anything worth being downvoted here?

Weird. Mine got downvoted a couple times too.

It would be great if people would take the time to point out whatever it was that they found to be objectionable.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#73

Post by taeric »

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?

Yeah... I am dead serious that I did not feel ripped off. Learning a lesson is worth every penny, in itself. Having someone else risk a spark near a gas source is a special kind of cost. :)

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#74

Post by dkrich »

ScottBurson wrote: post #70
dkrich wrote: post #65

I think this is a lot of perception and to be perfectly blunt, complete bullshit. People who think that just because tasks have become easier for experts in that field that they are easier for everyone are just plain wrong. I know this through personal experience. If you are just making static websites for small businesses and trying to compete with 1&1, then sure, you're going to have a hard time getting rich. But t…

You seem to have missed the part where they were successfully running a web development business from 1997 to about 2008, when things started to change. The point about choosing your customers wisely is certainly true, and I'd expect the OP would agree with you on that, but it doesn't invalidate the rest of what he's saying.

I see so from 1997 - 2008 things were awesome, then they sucked, but now they're great again!

Do you honestly think web development technologies have hit some inflection point after which everyone can build their own web applications? People have been saying that about technology for hundreds of years (that it can't possibly improve) and they are always wrong. If you are trying to sell your services and you are competing with commodity web developers as the author plainly implied is now the case Im afraid I have some bad news for you: you suck at selling and should work to improve that before learning the next hot technology. There will always be more work.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#75

Post by Falkon1313 »

I've been seeing things differently. Between myself and my friends/former coworkers, some of whom are contractors, some in agencies, some internal teams in non-web companies. Across the board, we've all been rather overwhelmed lately. It's a constant struggle to keep up, let alone get ahead of the backlog. Who isn't hiring, subcontracting, or both, just to keep from falling too far behind? The story the recruiters have been giving us as they try to lure us away is that it's a developer's market.

I would imagine that using custom development to compete with Geocities or MySpace style 'build your own page' services is probably not doing as well. But that market was already thin many years ago. Those services didn't kill web development as a profession then, and they're not killing it now.

The bit about people who've grown up with this stuff coming into power is certainly a wildcard, but I like to think it'll be a positive one, not a negative one that kills the industry.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#76

Post by Vivtek »

goostavos wrote: post #45
Vivtek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not joking at all. I had a consulting customer once that had a problem; I asked him a couple of things on the phone that he insisted he'd checked, and he pleaded that I come to Chicago in person and take a look, when I lived in Southern Indiana at the time. I said I'd bill him a day (which was generous; the whole thing cost me 13 hours).

Turns out that yes, one of the (trivial) things I had asked him about, that he'd said he'd checked, hadn't been checked. He was up and running in half an hour.

Then he didn't want to pay for a whole day because it had been so easy. But he did, in the end, pay for a whole day.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#77

Post by porker »

Falkon1313 wrote: post #75

I've been seeing things differently. Between myself and my friends/former coworkers, some of whom are contractors, some in agencies, some internal teams in non-web companies. Across the board, we've all been rather overwhelmed lately. It's a constant struggle to keep up, let alone get ahead of the backlog. Who isn't hiring, subcontracting, or both, just to keep from falling too far behind? The story the recruiters ha…

> is that it's a developer's market.

Interesting. I've found 2013 much tougher than 2012 - or 2011. All the agencies round here are recruiting good developers, but the rates for freelancers have gone down.

I both subcontract and work direct for clients, and work has been distinctly quiet since February. Mind you, the last 2 years have been amazing, which was when all the local agencies were laying off staff (or folding). Not sure what I'm doing differently to make me go in the opposite direction!

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#78

Post by websitescenes »

onemorepassword wrote: post #18

The title should be "the margins on bottomfeeding are shrinking". I consider this a good thing. Now if only these companies could stop calling themselves "developers" altogether, and maybe we wouldn't have to explain so often to potential clients why our software development is so much more expensive than their so-called "web development".

Omg . Best comment on this article. Sums it up. Really though, you hit the nail. I swear if one more Wordpress end user tells me they are developer, I am going to stab myself in the face.
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