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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.
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sure, I'll write you a great app for that below insultingly amount of money. I pinky swear it won't have any backdoors.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.