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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.