I think what the parent means to say is: "The lower the bid ceteris paribus (all else being equal) [0], the better." In this particular case, the article states

I think what the parent means to say is: "The lower the bid ceteris paribus (all else being equal) [0], the better." In this particular case, the article states: "Not only did Brendan Sudol meet the requirements of loading the data, the new code had 100 percent test coverage, an A grade from Code Climate, and included some new functionality to boot." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus