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Of course non-competes are ridiculous, a kind of indentured servitude, but does anyone working in a "rank and file" kind of job (say, making less than $100k) have any experience in having them enforced against you?

My employer once asked that I sign one (after about 2 years of employment). I gave it to a friend who was an employment lawyer and he said that unless I was given "consideration" (title, raise, etc) specifically tied to signing it, it was unenforceable in my state. His advice was just to sign it and know it wasn't enforceable.

My theory has always been that unless you're some kind of high wage "key player", most of the time it's just not worth an employer's time and effort to enforce them. They have to take some time and effort to figure out where you're working, know enough details about the job to know if its actually competitive (made harder if the new employer is an actual competitor), and if they get that far, actually turn to attorneys to enforce the contract. And none of this takes into account the potential for subterfuge -- quitting to become a "freelancer", moving out of state or a new employer actively furthering subterfuge by hiring you freelance for a period or hiring you under a bogus title.

I don't see any employer action happening for less than a $10,000 outlay and that kind of spending being just does not seem worth it for "ordinary" employees.

Of course there may be exceptions, like an "ordinary" employee who happens to work closely with a particularly important trade secret or filling a job in a very narrow field where the opening itself may have been the subject of gossip among the field's community.

https://www.fiverr.com/nirob67...

I had this guy make me a Virtual Girlfriend. and she is hot!!! and does anything I want!!! No Joke! Only for Oculus Rift though I believe. https://www.fiverr.com/imabads...

Where I'm paying them to do the work it's more than minimum wage. Look at what you can get on fiverr. I'm not talking about full time job I just need someone to write me a Python or C skeleton to my specifications.

When I look at how long it will take me to write a simple script to do some boring task automation vs paying someone $5 to do it, it's a no brainer.

My side jobs are contracted at $100/hr. There is a finite amount of time in the day and if I can pay someone to crank out something that isn't worth my time I'll do it.

If you are a programmer, this is what you are competing against. Slashdotters are going to have to justify their $30+/hr in other knowledge & skills.

Even basic stuff like FPGA programming is $5/these days.

Where I'm paying them to do the work it's more than minimum wage. Look at what you can get on fiverr. I'm not talking about full time job I just need someone to write me a Python or C skeleton to my specifications.

When I look at how long it will take me to write a simple script to do some boring task automation vs paying someone $5 to do it, it's a no brainer.

My side jobs are contracted at $100/hr. There is a finite amount of time in the day and if I can pay someone to crank out something that isn't worth my time I'll do it.

If you are a programmer, this is what you are competing against. Slashdotters are going to have to justify their $30+/hr in other knowledge & skills.

Even basic stuff like FPGA programming is $5/these days.

Where I'm paying them to do the work it's more than minimum wage. Look at what you can get on fiverr. I'm not talking about full time job I just need someone to write me a Python or C skeleton to my specifications.

When I look at how long it will take me to write a simple script to do some boring task automation vs paying someone $5 to do it, it's a no brainer.

My side jobs are contracted at $100/hr. There is a finite amount of time in the day and if I can pay someone to crank out something that isn't worth my time I'll do it.

If you are a programmer, this is what you are competing against. Slashdotters are going to have to justify their $30+/hr in other knowledge & skills.

Even basic stuff like FPGA programming is $5/these days.

Fiverr must not be trying too hard to take down these services, because a search for "amazon" turns up a phony reviewer as the first hit:

https://www.fiverr.com/abigail...

It’s very informative and you are obviously very knowledgeable in this area. You have opened my eyes to varying views on this topic with interesting and solid content. Actually I read it yesterday but I had some thoughts about it and today I wanted to read it again because it is very well written. I am off page SEO specialist with having experience in this fields. I can generate the quality leads. Buy Blog Comments

https://www.fiverr.com/websoft...

I've seen negative ratings disappear. I'm not sure how much I trust Yelp now.

You shouldn't trust the positive reviews too much either. You can go to Fiverr and find plenty of people willing to write a positive review for $5.

alherabd

I will design PROFESSIONAL Ebook Cover or Kindle Cover https://www.fiverr.com/s/50tp2...

will design PROFESSIONAL Ebook Cover https://www.fiverr.com/s/50tp2...

Our paper from November 2011, "Social is bad for search, and search is bad for social", covered this last year.

Barracuda Networks doesn't even seem to have published a paper. (The article linked in the Slashdot article is a scraper site for press releases.) The Barracuda press release points to an "infographic" and a blog posting which, as their only outside source, links to a black hat site.

Barracuda doesn't seem to have discovered the extent of the social spamming ecosystem. We identified at least 6 levels:

• Advertising agencies.
• SEO firms. ("Google Places Guaranteed")
• Fake review, "like", "+1", and "retweet" generators. ("Buy Facebook Fans with us today and watch your popularity boom.")
• Fake account generators, both automated and outsourced to low-wage countries. ("Bulk Accounts is the largest mass account generator out there. ...Gmail, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail and much more...")
• Fake IP address proxies and fake phone numbers ("Premium Private Proxies", "Top Quality CL Phone Numbers used to create Craigslist PVAs")
• Botnet operators providing proxies on compromised machines. Now we're down at the organized crime level.

This structure insulates the legitimate businesses who use ad agencies from the criminal activity at the bottom. Except for the botnet operators, everybody in that ecosystem has some kind of web presence, although towards the bottom, they usually have only Skype and Gmail accounts as contacts. I'm not going to link to them here, but our paper gives actual names.

http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?query=visitors&x=0&y=0

What's next? A report on the underground websites that sell pictures of naked girls kissing?

The problem that 99designs solves is that most clients don't need a $20,000 design and don't have $20,000 to spend.

You are so correct here. I've bought some services from Fiverr, like a personalized voicemail message. Major corporations might pay huge prices to get just. the. perfect. result, but I'm not a major corporation. I'll gladly pay $5 for something that isn't absolutely perfect but that is a lot better than I could do myself.