5 ms·

"They live in Eastern Europe and are poor. You live in America and are rich." OK. I know it wasn't supposed to be anything like that, but this sentence sounds

by Ygor 17y ago

"They live in Eastern Europe and are poor. You live in America and are rich." OK. I know it wasn't supposed to be anything like that, but this sentence sounds really bad. I actually got the idea that the coding business of any sort can get you in a pretty good position, financially. One of the reasons is the fact that you are not dependent solely on your local market. And there's also the lower cost of living.

andrewljohnson 17y ago
I should say "relatively rich." It's true some people in Eastern Europe are wealthy, but their wealthy is the equivalent of our middle class, so it's a different scale. And also, the people getting their start on rent-a-coder aren't the rich ones. I wrote this because of something I saw. A friend of mine has a popular iPhone app, and he was pressuring some overseas consultant to lower the final price for some work because he wasn't happy with the result. I don't think you should be leaning on your workers after the fact - it's up to you to ensure you hire quality worker, and pay them bit-wise so you are both happy.
- viraptor 17y ago
  No - "people in Eastern Europe" aren't wealthy or not in any way that can be approximated to a whole region. "Middle class" is not comparable. It's just a different market. You earn more money and spend more money, but on average it's the same proportion. There are some differences because of country-specific issues - gas prices are completely different for example. Talking about "people in Eastern Europe" is just silly... Which country? Estonia is different to Ukraine, which is different to Romania, which is ... Talking about "people in Eastern Europe" is like putting Mexicans and Canadians in a "people in North America" bag (and trying to get some meaningful economic average out of it) Why does this depend on a country: "he was pressuring some overseas consultant to lower the final price for some work because he wasn't happy with the result". If the result was not right according to the specification, then why not lower the price? If the result was correct, then changing the price is not right. But what does the country have to do with that?
  - andrewljohnson 17y ago
    1. People in Eastern Europe can be easily quantified by per capita income. And just because a dollar there goes further, it doesn't mean they have more dollars or can afford the things Americans can. 2. Estonia and the Ukraine are much more similar to each other than any Eastern bloc country is to the US. And I wouldn't lump Canada and Mexico together for discussion, but I would surely lump Mexico in with Central/South America and talk about them. 3. In America, you can agree to a well-defined contract and enforce it in court. Sometimes a buyer shouldn't pay for work completed. If you are dealing with a foreign contractor, neither party has legal protections, the buyer has a lot of leverage and more money, and as such should treat the contractor extremely fairly.
    - jwr 17y ago
      As to (1): I looked at http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=income+per+capita+in+eastern+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=income+per+capita+in+ea... and noted that the highest income per capita is 12.64 times larger than the lowest. I'm not sure how that "quantifies" anything. And before you say that the highest number, $21,000 is meaningful in anyway, let me just add that I've paid programmers $65,000 a year (in Poland). Please, people, stop generalizing. "Eastern Europe" is just as silly as EMEA, "SouthEast Asia" or "North America".
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      I don't think I can agree with that. The difference between Northern Michigan and Southern California or New York is substantially larger than the difference between Poland and Romania or Ukraine. The biggest difference between those countries and the US can be summed up in one word: market. They simply have a very limited local market for these skills, but plenty of people there have some skills and are prepared to work very hard to get more. Their cost of living can - at least in the former eastblock - easily approach the cost of living in the US. Plenty of ex eastblock countries are now using the Euro, either for their day-to-day transactions or already for their debt, even though they still have a national currency (because the Euro is more stable, banks like to borrow money in Euros to individuals that get paid in a local currency, very risky but many banks got burned badly during hyperinflation at the end of the 80's). We agree on the contract bit, I think. The contract situation is something that is not so important when using systems like rent-a-coder, you're not going to use it to write the gut of an ATM or a mission critical piece of software for a financial institution or a health care provider. Rent-a-coder is primarily intended for relatively short running simple projects that you want to get done on a minimal budget. The whole idea of relying on such cheap labour for something that you put a very high value on (high enough to go to court over) is counter to the intended purpose of the service.

by Ygor 17y ago

andrewljohnson 17y ago

I should say "relatively rich." It's true some people in Eastern Europe are wealthy, but their wealthy is the equivalent of our middle class, so it's a different scale. And also, the people getting their start on rent-a-coder aren't the rich ones. I wrote this because of something I saw. A friend of mine has a popular iPhone app, and he was pressuring some overseas consultant to lower the final price for some work because he wasn't happy with the result. I don't think you should be leaning on your workers after the fact - it's up to you to ensure you hire quality worker, and pay them bit-wise so you are both happy.

viraptor 17y ago
No - "people in Eastern Europe" aren't wealthy or not in any way that can be approximated to a whole region. "Middle class" is not comparable. It's just a different market. You earn more money and spend more money, but on average it's the same proportion. There are some differences because of country-specific issues - gas prices are completely different for example. Talking about "people in Eastern Europe" is just silly... Which country? Estonia is different to Ukraine, which is different to Romania, which is ... Talking about "people in Eastern Europe" is like putting Mexicans and Canadians in a "people in North America" bag (and trying to get some meaningful economic average out of it) Why does this depend on a country: "he was pressuring some overseas consultant to lower the final price for some work because he wasn't happy with the result". If the result was not right according to the specification, then why not lower the price? If the result was correct, then changing the price is not right. But what does the country have to do with that?
- andrewljohnson 17y ago
  1. People in Eastern Europe can be easily quantified by per capita income. And just because a dollar there goes further, it doesn't mean they have more dollars or can afford the things Americans can. 2. Estonia and the Ukraine are much more similar to each other than any Eastern bloc country is to the US. And I wouldn't lump Canada and Mexico together for discussion, but I would surely lump Mexico in with Central/South America and talk about them. 3. In America, you can agree to a well-defined contract and enforce it in court. Sometimes a buyer shouldn't pay for work completed. If you are dealing with a foreign contractor, neither party has legal protections, the buyer has a lot of leverage and more money, and as such should treat the contractor extremely fairly.
  - jwr 17y ago
    As to (1): I looked at http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=income+per+capita+in+eastern+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=income+per+capita+in+ea... and noted that the highest income per capita is 12.64 times larger than the lowest. I'm not sure how that "quantifies" anything. And before you say that the highest number, $21,000 is meaningful in anyway, let me just add that I've paid programmers $65,000 a year (in Poland). Please, people, stop generalizing. "Eastern Europe" is just as silly as EMEA, "SouthEast Asia" or "North America".
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I don't think I can agree with that. The difference between Northern Michigan and Southern California or New York is substantially larger than the difference between Poland and Romania or Ukraine. The biggest difference between those countries and the US can be summed up in one word: market. They simply have a very limited local market for these skills, but plenty of people there have some skills and are prepared to work very hard to get more. Their cost of living can - at least in the former eastblock - easily approach the cost of living in the US. Plenty of ex eastblock countries are now using the Euro, either for their day-to-day transactions or already for their debt, even though they still have a national currency (because the Euro is more stable, banks like to borrow money in Euros to individuals that get paid in a local currency, very risky but many banks got burned badly during hyperinflation at the end of the 80's). We agree on the contract bit, I think. The contract situation is something that is not so important when using systems like rent-a-coder, you're not going to use it to write the gut of an ATM or a mission critical piece of software for a financial institution or a health care provider. Rent-a-coder is primarily intended for relatively short running simple projects that you want to get done on a minimal budget. The whole idea of relying on such cheap labour for something that you put a very high value on (high enough to go to court over) is counter to the intended purpose of the service.