18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
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18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
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Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#2>It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity!
Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices.
However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just trying to get enough to cover the rent.
But at the end of the day, it's the way that system was set up. Hopefully 18F sees this as an opportunity to improve the auction system (secret minimum and other suggestions in the other thread), rather than a way to get cheap labour.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#3Given the tendency of HN toward libertarian and free market approaches, I've been consistently surprised at the suggestions being made around this. This is free markets gone right: A buyer and seller finding the most efficient price for each.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#4> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…
Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use? I get that other people were hoping to be paid for this, but would you end all volunteer programs on account of them interfering with paid labor?
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#5Given the tendency of HN toward libertarian and free market approaches, I've been consistently surprised at the suggestions being made around this. This is free markets gone right: A buyer and seller finding the most efficient price for each.
The seller wasn't going for the profit motive however. The seller simply wanted to work on the project as a volunteer. This is how he facilitated that. There is no profit motive here, and so really it's not even a business transaction, it's a volunteering oppurtunity.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#6The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach assumes that the only thing that separates vendors is price alone, which is incorrect. For commodities, perhaps it works, but for IT you get what you pay for. Just ask the other numerous agencies backing away from the reverse auction model due to disastrous lowest-bidder contractor performance.
I do, however, wholeheartedly embrace the pilot-model approach to IT procurement (i.e. MVP for government). It will help avoid those failure-prone $100M+ acquisitions that are doomed from the start, thus saving taxpayer money and allowing innovators to shine in practice, not through proposals.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#7Given the tendency of HN toward libertarian and free market approaches, I've been consistently surprised at the suggestions being made around this. This is free markets gone right: A buyer and seller finding the most efficient price for each.
The seller wasn't going for the profit motive however. The seller simply wanted to work on the project as a volunteer. This is how he facilitated that. There is no profit motive here, and so really it's not even a business transaction, it's a volunteering oppurtunity.
There are more value systems than just monetary. This is basic, relative, marginal utility.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#8> It didn’t seem controversial to me. Writing some code to help out the government and the general public—what a unique opportunity! Y'know, if the author explained it along the lines of "I wanted to have a record of government work as a foot in the door", I think it would be an easier pill to swallow for the folks bidding at reasonable prices. However, the tone here is a little patronising if another bidder was just…
So I take it you believe government should in general be an "employer of last resort", aka using public works projects as mediums of social services.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#9The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach ass…
> For commodities, perhaps it works, but for IT you get what you pay for.
Is the government bound to accept the lowest bid? When bidding closes, it would make sense to review the lowest bids for noticeable differences in expected quality. If it isn't worth doing that, because expected quality is always high, and prices keep coming low one must consider that the task has become commoditised.
Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1
#10The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach ass…
But sometimes you pay a lot and still get crap. I don't know any reliable mechanism that can predict project outcome. Past success is not a good indicator for future success in software projects, sadly.