Make money online
Make me a site similar to ebay.com with 10 dollars
I asked about the best options regarding freelance sites in the previous article. I would like to thank the people who advised me by commenting or email. My own experience with some of these sites will be shared in a future article. Now, let’s moan a bit about the crazy requests some “clients” have on such sites.
Few days ago I was reading an excellent freelance related article talking about the experienced writers frustration regarding the horrible pay some would get in such sites (elance, guru, RAC etc.)
We are talking about quality content experienced writers, people who master the words and can provide some amazing articles. I do read some of their work and it makes me wanna quit communication altogether since I really feel like a stupid monkey, if I compare my writing skills to theirs.
These people don’t work for 1 dollar an hour, as I don’t work for such low pay myself, even if in my country you might expect us to do this.
Their frustration came from seeing bids being won by people who’d write 3 books for 10 dollars. OK, it’s far fetched, but the prices some are willing to pay are absolutely an offence to any serious developer, being he/she a designer or a content creator.
I had 40+ bids on 2 freelance sites. Was able to get 2 jobs so far (one on each I am still working), with 10+ feedback and pleased customers. Extatic I might say since one of them is preparing some more work for me already. I did bid on “decent paying” jobs since, even if I am new there and in need of good initial feedback I won’t be a prostitute to do a 1000 USD work for 10.
Today, on RAC, there was a guy who wanted 3 .psd designs for a layout and had the maximum bid of 10 USD. I wanted to kick him. I wanted to smack his nose and teach him that creating 3 UNIQUE and beautiful layouts is not a 1 hour job. I do work extremely fast in Photoshop (I do have 7 years experience now) and can come up with a mockup design in few hours of inspired work, but even the best and fastest artist cannot work 3 different unique layouts in 1 hour. And 10 USD/hour I think is the MINIMUM any one should accept as payment.
And the cherry on the shit cake was: ‘I want unlimited changes on the designs, until I am pleased”. Of course, we’ll work for 2 weeks, until you’re pleased and then I will get 10 dollars for 100 hour work. And then I can throw my computer and go work on emptying trash cans in the city. I am sure those guys do get paid way better, not to mention they don’t kill their eyes as we do.
It’s not a singular case. The sites are filled with people who want huge projects to be worked on for dismal payment. I read some proposals and almost fell of my chair. Huge sites, with custom programming for 200 dollars? Let’s be serious.
In the end I think it comes to us to accept only good jobs with fair payment for our time. And the clients to learn that “cheap is not always better” and that sometimes it’s a better idea to pay a bit more for an amazing service. Not to mention that the top players in the design/content world don’t create sites similar to ebay for 10 dollars 
Worry not, those who pay $10 for lots of content, get what they paid for: some bull* written in indianglish, totally unusable and inedible.
Same goes for design .. no experienced developer, be it from China, Pakistan or Romania, will work for that wage. Which opens the way for guys who simply rip off other themes and then market them as “unique”. Sooner or later, they die.
And these 10$/week kind of jobs get bids? From who??
Btw, 40+ bids and olny 2 jobs???? WOW, that’s some patience! Can you teach me your secret?
Well, they do, that’s the problem. I know it’s better to have low prices till you get some feed-back there and rating, but prostitution is not my thing. Right now I lost yet another bid since I didn’t want to make a logo for 10 USD. And yes, someone did offer this price.
The good thing is I fare pretty well on elance. Got a returning customer for some wordpress skins (colour changes and some tweaking, not entire coding). I have to make 5 of these. Which is pretty OK. I am still under my normal fees, but I can’t say I work for pennies either
I am seriously considering deleting my RAC account. I don’t work like this. Even if I come from a poor country and need to establish my name there, I won’t work “for free”
Nice seeing you here too. Thank you for the tip from the other article. I guess I’ll give them a try too.
No, thank you for your tip with the elance site. My boyfriend is a freelance programmer, but he mostly worked with customers he gained 5 or 6 years ago. He wanted new customers, but he had a very bad opinion about these freelance sites. I told him about your experience with elance, and he decided to give it a try. Now he works on his first assignment - and it’s not a “10 dollars for 100 hours of work” thing
P.S. Pardon my rusty english
I think elance is the best one out of all these. It’s the only place you could actually consistently get jobs for decent pay. My friend gets some work from there occasionally and does about a day’s work of logos/branding for about $200. Not too bad, especially after you get some good feedback/reputation.
I’m interesting to join elance site. I search for the review of elance. Your post is very useful for me. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I recently encountered a similar situation and I was perplexed. I suppose that I can understand that the standards of sum have dropped due to the economy, but it is just ridiculous. Unfortunately, as long as there are parties willing to accept ridiculously little for quality work this will continue. Of course, I’m a big believer of “you get what you pay for;” I can only hope that it comes true in your “client’s” case…
It is really good sharing experience with public views,will make you good feed backs results.Since for a long time i was searching for the review of e lance, looking forward and interested to join e lance site.Its great and awaiting for more tips for e lance thanks.