Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $50,000, I make them a web design

I think it's a point well made, and I actually enjoy sarcasm, but this is certainly not the kind of thing I expect to see on HN. I too agree that $15 for a "web design" is absurd (heck, even the sentence "a web design" alone is). Quality work depends on the designer diving into the business of the client, which certainly will not happen in this case.

That being said, I would actually love to see an actual articulation of the points motivating this "response" rather than a page that can simply (and quite likely will) be perceived as arrogant.

I think his point was, for 15 bucks you "commited" money so you will pay attention to him, if you like it chances are you will hire him to do more than just this 15 bucks worth of crap. Think of it as:

a) Building a portfolio: xyz sites use my designs therefore i rule.

b) Building relationships: xyz site uses my designs therefore i rule, which is why next time they need a design they will call me.

c) Show off: xyz site uses my designs therefore i rule and i will post it on my site, which is why people will see what I do any anytime people want a design i will be a known name and have a portfolio to show for it.

He'd do it for free, but nobody will take him seriously.

Now.

Where was I, oh yes, I will accept this 50 grand challenge. Submit proof that you are worth at least 10 grand.

Quality design is worth whatever people are willing to charge for it. Web design on the lower end is extremely saturated with a lot of people just looking for a break and willing to do good enough design for next to no pay. It's not the same as hiring a design company for thousands of dollars but the vast majority of people don't need or want that.

Point made but I think it ignores the underlying reason we have $15 website templates in the market.

The crowd on HN should remember that businesses of all sizes have had it drilled into them for the last 10 years that they need to be "online" and have a website. Economics 101 Supply and Demand says that this explosion in demand cannot be met by full-service web designers or elite design shops. Not many can afford to pay the few guys that write books on CSS and HTML to handcode them a website.

The market met the demand and came up with a method to supply the 80-90% of websites that are simply a presence online. The method was to commoditize the product and churn it out in mass volume. This also happened to RAM, PCs, mobile phones and even houses (in some areas)

This is why we have themes, templates, wordpress, HTML for dummies, Odesk, Elance etc. Its just the market meeting the demand.