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It's already happening. As a freelancer, I often find people who want their "corporate" site built in WordPress for less money than what they would pay to a car

by sker 13y ago

It's already happening. As a freelancer, I often find people who want their "corporate" site built in WordPress for less money than what they would pay to a car mechanic for a similar amount of time worked. Sames goes for Magento and similar platforms.

karlkatzke 13y ago
That's been the case since I entered the development field in the early 00's. I wouldn't say it's anything new. The polite thing to do is to explain to them your hourly rates and then allow them to make a decision. The impolite, but safer for you, thing to do is to run without looking back. It's not a case of developers being automated, it's a case of the customer not understanding that they get what they pay for.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Or in the case of a simple content site that WP could easily do, perhaps they do understand what they're paying for. (Excepting security holes in WP...)
tluyben2 13y ago
If you are talking about the front end of a corporate site then sure, you can do that in WP. Don't think many would though; maybe for the grocery shop, but other than that? Even relatively small businesses in my neighborhood with not much cash to spend start out with a 'cheap WP' site, but then they want reservation systems integrated with their CRM. They want a live chat system. Integrated with their CRM. They want their reservation system connected to online partners. Etc. In a few months after starting out with this site, WP or anything else is no longer relevant; existing solutions need to be integrated manually anyway and custom solutions made by, for instance, the CRM/reservation system which do not use WP are a better fit. At a much higher price. And people pay it, because custom integration is even more expensive. Even with all it's plugins, WP is only a good solution if you like to do a lot of work manually or you want to spend a lot of money having every plugin and external package nicely integrated. And no inexperienced programmers is going to bring that to a good end without landing on reddit/hn as being responsible for making some epic security holes along the way.
- yogo 13y ago
  I was surprised to see a multi-million dollar corporation (nameless) using wordpress. It's slow and bloated but I guess it gets the job done. Naturally they went to someone and said they needed a site, then that someone did what they do best and installed wordpress with some theme. Naturally when it came time to make certain changes or something broke the installer couldn't do anything about it. This is a B2B company and I doubt any sales come from their site so from a business point of view it's understandable how a cheap WP installation got there. However, in my experience it always turns out being more expensive down the road. There's money to be made with broken wordpress installations and moving sites off wordpress altogether.
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    Yep, and that's were it gets very expensive very fast and that's also were 'cheap' programmers cannot help at all. I have 3 friends who quit their jobs and went into website creation. They make simple sites based on WP and make nice money with it. They look mostly horrible but clients can talk to them on their level and feel comfortable. These sites go between E1500-2500 per site. Now when anything breaks / doesn't work / has issues, they have to hire someone to fix it and they have to trust this person; in most cases, the cost of fixing/adding on by this 'more capable' person is more expensive than the site was in the first place. So it's a good market for capable coders / admins to dive into. Optimizing, securing, fixing, extending. All money makers far beyond the boring setup of the initial site.
    - yogo 13y ago
      That's something I don't think this article covered. Sure technologies like WP make it easier for someone less skilled to accomplish something but then demand is created for others that are more skilled to fix, support, customize like you said.
kalms 13y ago
You need a better class of client then! The persona you're describing are the intended audience of premium themes. They would probably never really get anywhere with their "new idea", if the barrier to entry was higher than $39 or $2 hosting a month. May I suggest hooking up with a larger agency, or corporate entity to help weed out the worst for you?

by sker 13y ago

karlkatzke 13y ago

That's been the case since I entered the development field in the early 00's. I wouldn't say it's anything new. The polite thing to do is to explain to them your hourly rates and then allow them to make a decision. The impolite, but safer for you, thing to do is to run without looking back. It's not a case of developers being automated, it's a case of the customer not understanding that they get what they pay for.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Or in the case of a simple content site that WP could easily do, perhaps they do understand what they're paying for. (Excepting security holes in WP...)

tluyben2 13y ago

If you are talking about the front end of a corporate site then sure, you can do that in WP. Don't think many would though; maybe for the grocery shop, but other than that? Even relatively small businesses in my neighborhood with not much cash to spend start out with a 'cheap WP' site, but then they want reservation systems integrated with their CRM. They want a live chat system. Integrated with their CRM. They want their reservation system connected to online partners. Etc. In a few months after starting out with this site, WP or anything else is no longer relevant; existing solutions need to be integrated manually anyway and custom solutions made by, for instance, the CRM/reservation system which do not use WP are a better fit. At a much higher price. And people pay it, because custom integration is even more expensive. Even with all it's plugins, WP is only a good solution if you like to do a lot of work manually or you want to spend a lot of money having every plugin and external package nicely integrated. And no inexperienced programmers is going to bring that to a good end without landing on reddit/hn as being responsible for making some epic security holes along the way.

yogo 13y ago
I was surprised to see a multi-million dollar corporation (nameless) using wordpress. It's slow and bloated but I guess it gets the job done. Naturally they went to someone and said they needed a site, then that someone did what they do best and installed wordpress with some theme. Naturally when it came time to make certain changes or something broke the installer couldn't do anything about it. This is a B2B company and I doubt any sales come from their site so from a business point of view it's understandable how a cheap WP installation got there. However, in my experience it always turns out being more expensive down the road. There's money to be made with broken wordpress installations and moving sites off wordpress altogether.
- tluyben2 13y ago
  Yep, and that's were it gets very expensive very fast and that's also were 'cheap' programmers cannot help at all. I have 3 friends who quit their jobs and went into website creation. They make simple sites based on WP and make nice money with it. They look mostly horrible but clients can talk to them on their level and feel comfortable. These sites go between E1500-2500 per site. Now when anything breaks / doesn't work / has issues, they have to hire someone to fix it and they have to trust this person; in most cases, the cost of fixing/adding on by this 'more capable' person is more expensive than the site was in the first place. So it's a good market for capable coders / admins to dive into. Optimizing, securing, fixing, extending. All money makers far beyond the boring setup of the initial site.
  - yogo 13y ago
    That's something I don't think this article covered. Sure technologies like WP make it easier for someone less skilled to accomplish something but then demand is created for others that are more skilled to fix, support, customize like you said.

kalms 13y ago

You need a better class of client then! The persona you're describing are the intended audience of premium themes. They would probably never really get anywhere with their "new idea", if the barrier to entry was higher than $39 or $2 hosting a month. May I suggest hooking up with a larger agency, or corporate entity to help weed out the worst for you?