I'd happily solve/tutor a one-off problem for 2 hours at a lower fixed price ($100-200), but as much as I like the idea of one-off tutor sessions, I can't get behind a minimum wage rate. At my usual $150 hour rate, it would take 17 hours on WageMachine to match one hour of work . I could just as easily spend those 17 hours finding that one hour of work (and it wouldn't be just one hour). [Edit] Thinking about it more…
Thank you very much for the feedback. We haven't figured out product/market fit but thanks to all the feedback we're getting today we're getting closer. We reduced the max shift from 2 hours to 1. We think this stresses that this is more of a tool to get small things done, meet future potential clients/employees, and earn small amounts of cash now versus a way to make a living. Basically, instead of spending 17 hours…
Plus I regularly hire freelancers and while making it simply into a freelancer market place would be a horrible idea, I would definitely say that I would hire someone who has been able to help me out with a problem in 30 mins. And I think it's also a good way for developers to see if their potential clients are complete idiots or if they're not too bad themselves.