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What I find more amazing is what an incredible equalizer IT is: An individual with nothing more than a computer (and $50 worth of rented production infrastructu

What I find more amazing is what an incredible equalizer IT is: An individual with nothing more than a computer (and $50 worth of rented production infrastructure) plus the right skills can build a project that makes a (well-deserved) million a year, from anywhere in the world. It also shows the power of smart design and keeping as much as you can client side. Attempting to move any of the actual work to the server side would create an unsustainable amount of a) additional development work, b) infrastructure cost, c) infrastructure operations work. It's also a great example that you truly can do everything inside a browser nowadays. Regarding the incredulous people who can't imagine how 12 TB/month cost only $50, the hosting provider may be taking a small loss on it, and make it up with other customers. At Hetzner, extra bandwidth (after you've exhausted your included allocation) retails for 1 EUR/TB + VAT. A provider can afford to lose $10-20/month on a single customer, and kicking them out is probably not worth the effort and the risk of even the smallest amount of bad press/word-of-mouth.

yosito 6y ago
It's the "plus the right skills" part that makes it not actually an equalizer. No one is born with the skills to write amazing software. It takes a lot of hard work to learn those skills, and in order to do that hard work you need to have the available time and resources both to study/practice and to meet your material needs (and the material needs of anyone who depends on you) in the meantime. Not to mention that it's not just the skill of programming, there are a hundred other prerequisite skills that can't be taken for granted either, a big one of which is language skills. If English isn't your first language, you're starting way behind.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  Yes, you need free time, and either having English skills, learning English skills, or knowing another language that has good documentation is important. But it's still a far shot from needing a tens of millions of dollars to build a factory, or even tens of thousands to buy some basic equipment for some smaller business that doesn't have the potential to get anywhere nearly as big.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  It's still more accessible than anything else. You need a computer with an internet connection and time. That's it. English is the easiest language to learn as well. Not because of its structure or vocabulary mind you but because it's very easy to get constant exposure to it in all forms - entertainment, education, science publications. The best thing about programming is that you don't need an invitation to an exclusive club. No degree, no connections, no expensive licenses. You can put stuff out there for the whole world to see and it costs <100$ to have a functioning website with payment integration. You need talent and dedication to recognize and solve problems people consider important. It's maybe the last mostly meritocratic fields left. We are lucky to have it, it might not be for very long.

yosito 6y ago

It's the "plus the right skills" part that makes it not actually an equalizer. No one is born with the skills to write amazing software. It takes a lot of hard work to learn those skills, and in order to do that hard work you need to have the available time and resources both to study/practice and to meet your material needs (and the material needs of anyone who depends on you) in the meantime. Not to mention that it's not just the skill of programming, there are a hundred other prerequisite skills that can't be taken for granted either, a big one of which is language skills. If English isn't your first language, you're starting way behind.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
Yes, you need free time, and either having English skills, learning English skills, or knowing another language that has good documentation is important. But it's still a far shot from needing a tens of millions of dollars to build a factory, or even tens of thousands to buy some basic equipment for some smaller business that doesn't have the potential to get anywhere nearly as big.
bluecalm 6y ago
It's still more accessible than anything else. You need a computer with an internet connection and time. That's it. English is the easiest language to learn as well. Not because of its structure or vocabulary mind you but because it's very easy to get constant exposure to it in all forms - entertainment, education, science publications. The best thing about programming is that you don't need an invitation to an exclusive club. No degree, no connections, no expensive licenses. You can put stuff out there for the whole world to see and it costs <100$ to have a functioning website with payment integration. You need talent and dedication to recognize and solve problems people consider important. It's maybe the last mostly meritocratic fields left. We are lucky to have it, it might not be for very long.