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Comment by x5n1 | Hacker News Reader

Does not seem as if this concept has proven to work yet. Why? Developers are mostly thrifty and looking to solve a problem. Most of the time they can do this without help using Google. Developers also don't value their time enough or properly and like solving problems, so they would be more likely to try to solve the problem themselves than pay someone for it. That's why you need managers... developers are often not good decision makers in terms of utilizing their time most profitably.

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These stereotypes are very similar to the ones misapplied in helping the impoverished. What studies actually found is that if you give the impoverished money they spend it pretty well.

If you gave a developer company accounts to spend as they saw fit then they would probably make good decisions too. Why a developer would give their own money is a mystery to me as any time they save has to still be used for their employer.

Instead, at best a manager can make these decisions and even they are usually limited by corporate policy which must deal with the complexity of tax and corporate law.

If you want to fix the problem, push a tax compliant product that startups can use to supply their developers with quarterly funds for this purpose and then advertise it as a benefit of their work environment.

Are you saying developers aren't as smart as teachers, or are cheapskates even though they make far more money?

A Sharing Economy Where Teachers Win: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10179385

"To date, Teacher Synergy, the company behind the site, has paid about $175 million to its teacher-authors, says Adam Freed, the company’s chief executive. The site takes a 15 percent commission on most sales."

"Teachers often spend hours preparing classroom lesson plans to reinforce the material students are required to learn, and many share their best materials with colleagues. Founded in 2006, TeachersPayTeachers speeds up this lesson-plan prep work by monetizing exchanges between teachers and enabling them to make faster connections with farther-flung colleagues."

You're ignoring the growing population of developers who are hobbyists or not professional software developers. A lot of these people just want to get something done and don't have their egos tied up in the solution.

I think this is a good idea. Many people accept help online and feel guilty about getting extensive assistance for free because they understand someone went out of their way to help and it's human nature to not want to take advantage of others.

There are already a lot of sites where I've seen people post small bounties like "$25 to anyone who can help me with this small problem." They can't afford to have someone write an entire program for them, but it's worth paying someone to get past a thorny issue.

Those are some interesting stereotypes you've got there. Developers don't value their time?

I've noticed this as well. Most developers will spend 40 hours building a wheel instead of offering to wire up a pre built solution that costs money.

I think there are different reasons why that may happen - perhaps a misconception of the problem space and what an off the shelf tool provides, or misestimation of implementation time vs learning time.

I don't think it is appropriate to say that developers don't value their time and therefore need managers, as a blanket statement.

I can tell you exactly why I might fall into this stereotyped category.

1) The wheel is closed-source, and I do not trust the vendor with that component. Linkages to that upstream code/license might not be acceptable/cannot not be justified given the cost/headache of dealing with the transaction.

2) The wheel is open-source and the code is crap or the license incompatible.

3) The wheel is open source and I worry that the direction of the project is not compatible with my needs. It might be awesome for the moment, but given that the project can potentially deviate in a direction that won't work for the needed solution, linking my code to that upstream project doesn't make sense. If the project does end up going in a different direction, I must break my stride, drop what I'm working on, and go back to retrofit that particular solution.

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