Two problems with the bounty system: risk and benefits. Programmers face too much risk and get no fringe benefits.
How about a modified bounty system: pay a large pool of remote programmers a "reasonable" base salary (it might be quite small if a programmer can sign up with more than one company) plus a bounty for achieving some programming goal. The problem is benefits. No one company will wish to pay a programmer's benefits because it would prefer to free ride on the rest. In this sense the benefits are a public good. How about a programmer's collective/cooperative to provide benefits to the group? Each member pays in (they would be willing to do so in order to share the risk of not winning a bounty), plus a small payment from each participating business.
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Two problems with the bounty system: risk and benefits. Programmers face too much risk and get no fringe benefits.
How about a modified bounty system: pay a large pool of remote programmers a "reasonable" base salary (it might be quite small if a programmer can sign up with more than one company) plus a bounty for achieving some programming goal. The problem is benefits. No one company will wish to pay a programmer's benefits because it would prefer to free ride on the rest. In this sense the benefits are a public good. How about a programmer's collective/cooperative to provide benefits to the group? Each member pays in (they would be willing to do so in order to share the risk of not winning a bounty), plus a small payment from each participating business.