Gigster Wants To Be the Uber of Software Development (techcrunch.com)

HughPickens.com writes: Josh Constine writes at TechCrunch that a company named Gigster is trying to bring the Uber business model to software development. Simply: a user sends them an idea, Gigster passes it on to developers who sign up to build software, and when it's done they send back a functioning app. After converting product requirements into a development plan, they let their group of remote developers start hacking away at the code. It has already resulted in a dating app for Muslim millennials, a way for citizens of the developing world to buy electricity, and has over fifty more projects in the pipeline. The entire development process goes through their app, and they charge a flat fee rather than an hourly rate. Gigster developers who satisfy customers can earn karma points and qualify for higher-paying contracts. One major caveat: Gigster will still own the code to the app it designs for you, and it "leases" the software to you. They say they want to be able to reuse certain components on other projects.

Comments

Uber of Software Development?

[FunkSoulBrother]

I guess they won't be paying benefits to their obvious employees then.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[gstoddart]

This is the new trend ... piece work, with no employment, benefits, or stability.

This "sharing economy" bullshit is about letting the company who goes IPO to make money, while relying on a bunch of people they treat as disposable do the work for them.

So, yeah, you're not an employee in this scenario, and you never will be. And meanwhile some asshole of a CEO makes millions of dollars for exploiting you.

Doesn't sound like a fair deal to me. Not sure why everyone is so keen to participate in stuff like this.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[Junta]

Well, yes, that's the deal pretty plainly spelled out.

Traditionally you trade in the potential for big upside for consistency of a paycheck. Or you surrender the consistency for a chance to control your destiny and maybe make some surprisingly big bucks because you get to keep ownership of it.

Here the company sees it being 'cool' to surrender the consistency of a paycheck, but still completely surrender ownership and control of your work, and they are understandably exploiting that for all it's worth. Hopefully it blows up in their faces rather than establishing a new normal.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[gstoddart]

then its just another company trying to exploit low wage labor to produce cookie-cutter products on the cheap

Go with that one.

That's the entire business model ... get rich by letting some schmuck compete to do the job as cheaply as possible. If you're really lucky, you go IPO and cash out.

The people who do the work? They collect a little table scraps and hope it gets better.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[__aaclcg7560]

Doesn't sound like a fair deal to me. Not sure why everyone is so keen to participate in stuff like this.

How is this any different from working at any other company? If you're an employee, you get laid off when the owner sells the business and retires with a boatload of cash. Or, in my case in 2013, I was laid off and out of work for eight months because the Fortune 500 company had a lousy fiscal year and the CEO got a 60% raise to buy a new yacht. Here's the secret of the new economy: you want to be an owner, not an employee.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[gstoddart]

Here's the secret of the new economy: you want to be an owner, not an employee.

Oddly enough, both Adam Smith and Karl Marx sorted that fact out a long time ago.

Doesn't mean you need to participate in the race to the bottom so some asshole of a CEO can cash out.

I look at this entire "sharing economy" as people getting screwed over for chump change to make someone else rich.

Fuck that.

This is just taking every advance we made in employment over the last century or so and tossing it out and saying that it's so damned important that some douchebag profit we should all be willing to sacrifice ourselves to that end.

Again, fuck that.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[Gr8Apes]

Not really, current employment has some benefits. A gig economy only works if the gigs pay enough to cover your long term. I doubt anything on gigster is going to pay that well. At best, you'll be getting $2/hr or something like that, by the time all is said and done. I really love the clause on gigster retaining code ownership. That just means you're a short term hack for gigster. Wouldn't surprise me if gigster also hides who you are, so there's 0 benefit to doing anything for them unless you're already in a hopeless situation.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Whether a company is exploiting you has nothing to do with whether they offer benefits or stability. A company is exploiting you if they are under compensating you for your labor and skill.

I can't even hire a nanny without becoming an employer who provides benefits like paid time off and payroll taxes, etc. I am not an employer, I don;t want to do any of that shit. I just want to pay for someone to watch my kid while I am working.

Whether I am working as a contractor or as an employee, it is my responsibility to ensure that I am being properly compensated, and if not, asking for a raise or finding a new job.

Doesn't sound like a fair deal to me.

Then don't participate.

Not sure why everyone is so keen to participate in stuff like this.

Me neither, but that's for them to decide.

The interesting thing about software development is that good software developers can write good code in less time than a bad developer can write bad code.

A job that pays per project rather than hourly might be horribly exploitative for a bad software developer who needs to spend a month completing a project and another 2 months trying to fix all the bugs, and it might be very lucrative for a good software developer who only needs to spend 2 days doing it correctly.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[rockmuelle]

Um, the OP is wrong about the status quo? Look, most good devs I know with 5+ years experience make in the mid $100k range, have great benefits, and can find a new job on a moment's notice. If they consult, they do it because they can have a nice rate that gives them flexibility in other areas of their life. Most non-devs I know would love to make half what the devs make and have that type of job security. (and I'm not located in CA, NY, WA, or MA)

Also, most startup CEOs don't make millions. Most are looking for new jobs after a few years of making nothing. As for non-startup SMEs (small/medium enterprises), most of the ones that employee technical talent treat that talent well. Sure, if things go south, they may have to lay people off, but see my first paragraph for the solution.

Remind me what's wrong with the status quo???

tl;dr; developers have it really good right now. Quit your bitching.

-Chris

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[__aaclcg7560]

Many contractors do not get paid benefits.

As a W2 contractor doing I.T. support work, I get paid holidays, 20 Paid Time Off (PTO) days , 401k and health benefits. According to recruiters who contacted me, I could get matching benefits and a 30% increase in pay at a different job. Ironically, the increase in pay rate is because many hipsters are unwilling to commute more than 30 minutes away from San Francisco. Southern Silicon Valley (i.e., San Jose and Sunnyvale) are starving for workers.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[MBGMorden]

As a primary job it is indeed pretty bleak. Depending on pay level though I could see it as a pretty decent second job to pad income. I've already got stability and health insurance and the like through my main job. If however, I could take on some projects on something like this on the side I could potentially save up a better down payment on my next car, or pay down my mortgage a bit, etc.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[KGIII]

It's a frequent trait that people have where they see themselves as underprivileged and the fault being because of the more wealthy. What they don't seem to realize is that they are that person to someone else. I don't think this is a recent development. I do think we communicate more. I also think it's the people who complain that speak the most.

The thing is, Grishnakh is usually more sane and logical. :/ It is understandable, it is Friday and the holiday is fast approaching. Really, I am pretty sure that the vast majority of us on Slashdot have far better lives than the average person could ever hope for. Considering that we've power to run computers that we own and time to post on Slashdot, it's quite likely. We've probably even got food and safe shelter.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[GodelEscherBlecch]

Yeah I don't get it.

These guys would have to be some serious rockstars of design and project management to make this fly for * use cases and * talent pools. I think it is more likely that they just think they are, and that they are in for a world of pain. I find it unlikely that a developer with serious chops and flexible skills will want to participate in this scheme instead of the good job/contract they probably already have working on something long term and of greater weight/interest. Likewise I find it unlikely that a good designer/project engineer with the talent to pull this off on their end will want to spend their days doing bite size projects for penny-pinching customers instead of working on big boy projects where their dev pool isn't a constantly shifting variable.

Sounds like a bubble that will burst, leaving behind a bunch of crap software with no support, unsatisfied customers, burnt out designers, rich initial investors, and worst of all, a bunch of mediocre devs who think they have skills because one time somebody paid them shit to work on some dinky webapp.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[KGIII]

That's a long ways away on a fixie.

That said, I have a novella for this! ;-) I'll skip it but someone needs to do the opposite of this. I've talked it over with a few people and I think it'd be brilliant. Imagine, if you will, something called Graybeards Incorporated where basically the employees were all freelance workers, perhaps contractors for longer terms, where you do just the difficult things - where you go in and debug old COBOL that's not been touched or documented in ten years and now has failed and nobody knows why. Except, instead of paying the least, you own the skills and you make the company pay more than fairly because you're saving their asses.

However, the Graybeards would need to be at the top of their game - the best of the best and recognized as such by their peers. They cost a lot and get to put stuff into their contracts like being allowed to wear a cape and mask or even wear their underwear on the outside of their pants if they so want. Like Geek Squad but with actual geeks that know what the hell they're doing and are willing to travel the globe - if the price is right and they can sleep in the executive lounge. However, the Graybeards would have to be not just good but exceptionally skilled.

I actually gave it some consideration. I'm kind of willing to throw a dollar or two at the idea but I have way too much on my plate this coming year. I was thinking along the lines of funding it, getting it started, and then having it as some sort of co-op where my stake can be bought out. With, of course, my taking a reasonable interest on my loan. I'm not that altruistic. ;-)

Seriously, someone should do this for you guys that are getting old. Instead of being subjected to ageist prejudices, capitalize on those old things that still require repair and crisis work. The guys who can walk in, view the layout, and see where the security problem is and then fix it... The guys who can, and will, sit in the back room in a bank basement to pour over (or convert) COBOL. The guys that still remember that FORTRAN was good... Those sorts of people but not people looking for employment so much as people looking to get paid because they're gods among mortals and know it.

Ah well... That's the non-novella version.

Re:Uber of Software Development?

[TWX]

I can't even hire a nanny without becoming an employer who provides benefits like paid time off and payroll taxes, etc. I am not an employer, I don;t want to do any of that shit.

The solution is to contact a service company that does those tasks, and you pay the company for the privilege of doing those necessary business functions for you plus their profit, plus the funds that ultimately become the wages and benefits for the worker.

The real solution is to decouple healthcare from employment though. Make healthcare a function of a single-payer system and suddenly both the employer and the employee are much freer. A person hiring a nanny or au pair or other full-time care individual doesn't have to deal with the constantly-shifting nature of medical insurance coverage and only has to worry about following a prewritten withholdings plan that their accountant can figure out in a few minutes, and the individual employed isn't damn-near indentured to the employer just to keep the prescriptions coming.

Yes, it requires more taxes to be paid than are being paid now. But, it probably reduces the total cost compared to the insurance situation now because a lot of the massive, parasitic bureaucracy operated by both the medical companies and the medical insurance companies can be simplified. Sure, those whose jobs to push paperwork for claims will probably have to find other lines of work, but this isn't the first time that a middleman position has been eliminated and it won't be the last.

I suspect that in the case of entites like the one discussed in the article, they appeal to entry-level programmers that don't have a lot of experience to use to get hired, and who are still nominally dependent on their parents and haven't really ventured out on their own yet. They can afford to be intermittendly unemployed and they might still receive benefits through other means. That's a luxury that most of us don't have.

Requirements

[Capt.Albatross]

Previous schemes like this have run into problems getting the requirements straight, and with estimating. Don't tell me that in the agile world, these things don't matter: they matter in the real world, where your customers live.

Re:Requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

But this isn't in your antiquated "real world", old man. This is in the CLOUD.

Re:Requirements

[blankinthefill]

I would argue that in the agile world, it matters just as much if not more, especially with their desire to charge a flat fee. From the article: " A sales engineer discusses proposals with clients, and using the AI engine, comes back with a price quote and production schedule in about 10 minutes. Then Gigster manages the entire development process through delivery of the fully-functional app." This implies to me that they are coming up with this fee and the full schedule at the start, from someone who isn't going to be that closely invested in the actual development of the app (and who likely is going to miss a LOT of what's going to go in that development. I know some very good sales engineers, but they are almost all behind the development curve just due to the fact that they don't DO development regularly, if at all.) That's not agile. That's the antithesis of agile. The entire point of agile is that you can't know right from the start how exactly a project is going to turn out, and what kinds of roadblocks you'll encounter. And especially with the development of original apps, unexpected events are going to crop up. The agile method is built to zero in on requirements during the process of development, and to actually allow an estimate to be just that, an estimate of time and cost. And yes yes, I know that agile can't be completely open ended, but the entire point is to be flexible in your development so you can easily adjust when problems arise, which, again, is NOT what this company seems to be doing. This company is not doing that at all, they're like the epitome of waterfall style development. Which means they have to be nearly perfect at requirements and estimating, which is nearly impossible. And I think you're right that it will almost certainly come back and bite them in the ass. (And that's ignoring the bullshit sharing economy/labor issues involved.)

Re:Requirements

[Tablizer]

There's always a market selling to PHB's who don't know better and don't care to ask, so are riding the Learn-The-Hard-Way Express.

Marketers are trained to find and spot gullible PHB's, like a leopard spotting wounded prey a mile away.

Re:"Leasing" the software out?

[Lab Rat Jason]

The issue I see with this isn't actually the lease stuff, that seems pretty straightforward. The problem at hand is managing the rats-nest of code produced by doing several hundred projects. Who is going to have enough knowledge of each project to know where the assets are and what they can be used for... they're trying to gain efficiency through re-use, but there's no way you can maintain that control... you're going to give access to all of these apps and ideas to every developer in your network? They'll use that info to obtain zero day exploits to the apps that have been built, and attempt to inject their own backdoors into apps. No thank you!

what could possibly go wrong?

[Gravis Zero]

Sure, I'll write you a great app for that below insultingly amount of money. I pinky swear it won't have any backdoors.

Re:what could possibly go wrong?

[Jason Levine]

Or vulnerabilities. If Gigster winds up paying their developers the least amount possible, how long until their developers realize they get paid the same whether or not they sanitize that user input. User submitted a name of "Robert'); Drop Table Students; --"? No problem. Just stick that in the query and run it.

Uber works

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber works because the requirements are clear: drive someone from point A to B.
AirBnB works because the requirements are clear: rent a place to stay

This isn't the same. Software requirements are different every time and aren't 100% defined.

Re:As if devs don't have enough to worry about

[__aaclcg7560]

If average people who would otherwise have a decent corporate job with a good salary and benefits have to resort to hustling for work, a fast food job might be a better option.

Written by someone who never tried to look for a fast food job after being out of work from a technical job. When I was unemployed for two years (2009-10), I couldn't get a minimum wage job because managers would say I was overqualified and leave for a better job when the economy improves. Besides, they got all these teenagers and illegals looking for minimum wage jobs. I spent two years working two technical jobs for seven days a week to get back on my feet.

I have an idea for an app....

[flarb936]

Every time someone says to me, "You make apps?? I have this idea..." I'll just refer them to this site whether it's good or not. I just need an effective way to shut down these conversations immediately.

Case Studies

[coop247]

Their highlighted case studies (https://gigster.com/success-stories) are quite funny. One of them is a "site down" page. The financial planning one breaks the second you change a value. The others are Twitter Bootstrap sites with minor modifications. Success!

Already exists

[jandrese]

There are already several websites that claim to hook up developers with people who have small problems. They all suffer from the same problem: They're full of "idea men" who have no idea how much labor costs and shitty developers who don't give a crap about the work. You'll see jobs like "develop the database backend and website for a 500 million user website on this idea so clever I can't put it in the description or someone will steal it. Budget: $150."

And then endless complaints from employers that the code delivered was shoddy and barely met the (horribly under-specified) requirements and they couldn't use it.

Why no "uber" of prostitution?

[tekrat]

Simply call it "body sharing" or "body gigs" so you can skirt prostitution laws. Make an app where you rent out your sexual favors. After all, if Uber can ignore Taxi laws, escorts should be able to do the same.

But what they need is an app -- hmmm. Maybe these guys can make that app for me, and I'll start a business worth 40 billion like Uber.

Re:As if devs don't have enough to worry about

[__aaclcg7560]

When I was unemployed for two years (2009-10), there was seven applicants for every job opening. Today it might still be three applicants for every job opening. A normal economy has two applicants for every job opening. This economy is anything but normal.