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Comment by pkamb | Hacker News Reader

Does anything like this exist for putting bounties on small scripts / extensions?

I just posted these questions yesterday, in the hope of finding solutions to a couple common annoyances I have with Google search:

https://superuser.com/questions/1218986/keyboard-shortcut-to...

https://superuser.com/questions/1218989/how-to-maintain-orde...

I don't want the overhead of "hiring a freelancer" to do the work. But I'd definitely pay a bounty if someone came in with the answer / script / extension / app that solved the problem.

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I'm curious: In your mind, what is the difference between 'hiring a freelancer' and 'paying a bounty to someone who comes with the answer'?

I'd suggest to you odesk.com, but that is a site for hiring freelancers. Although I've seen it used many times for 'here's what I want, deliver it and the money is yours' rather than a .. 'work for me at X/hr and I'll direct you' kind of thing.

- I don't want to own the resulting code. Open Source delivery, or a link to someone else's extension that accomplishes the goal.

- Payment on the order of $10 for some simple script, not $300+. They can make up the difference via multiple bounties, selling to multiple people, etc.

- Public question that can be found by others with the same problem (who can upvote or add to the bounty), as well as people who are able to deliver the solution. Stack Exchange, but with payment.

- I don't want anything to do with reading resumes, selecting the worker, scheduling, payments, etc. This is what I think of when I hear "freelance".

I understand what you're getting at, but the price is an issue.

I do something similar: I write very small programs for embedded systems: simple timers, sequencers, alarms, etc. for around $100. In some cases, we're talking 15 minutes of work, tops.

If I could charge just $30 and instead sell it to multiple people, I would, but the odds of that happening are so slim, I have to have a $100 minimum. The problem is that even for well-defined problems, what people need tends to be so different that the best you can do is have a common framework for similar problems. The code itself is rarely even close to identical

I definitely understand the price issue. It might not be a lucrative or attractive business for existing freelancers.

BUT... people already do this stuff for free. Create free Chrome Extensions to make some tweak on a website. Spend hours crafting a script for an answer on Stack Overflow, only to get fake internet points.

I asked the questions above on SuperUser, a website that theoretically does exactly what I'm asking. Someone will probably eventually post a solution, someday. It just takes too long. The site doesn't get enough traffic because no one is getting paid to do the work.

...and that's exactly what prompted me to do it. I would hang out on hardware sites, offering free help, fixing people's firmware, doing simple hardware design and writing short programs for the fun of it.

Then I realized I could do the same thing and get paid. It's just a matter of shifting the context. You've no doubt seen any number of sites where people post sample code to help someone, but disappear if it doesn't work, or there's a minor detail left off, etc.

The only change I made is that by paying me, I guarantee you it will work and I'll be around for future changes, extension, etc. A surprising number of people are willing to pay for the assurance over just getting free help.

The thing is, the motivation is different when it's fake internet points than when it's actual money. The relationship between the people is different, too. The way it works now, the relationship is a cordial, friendly, familiar relationship (even though the people don't actually know each other in many cases). Throw money into the deal, even the paltry $10, and now it becomes a business relationship, with all that entails.

Maybe. I think if a site like GitHub or Stack Overflow added bounties they'd do it in a way that kept the spectrum more on the relationship side, rather than the employee/employer. And the bounty is an extra perk.

Stackoverflow does have a bounty system . you can only pay with your fake points though , allowing ppl to pay with real cash is ripe for abuse.Their points economy is very carefully built, just like any successful in game economy, hyperinflation is major problem is a problem all of them have to worry about.

> I don't want anything to do with reading resumes, selecting the worker, scheduling, payments, etc.

at the end of the day you need to validate that the person is going to be able to write this code and that you are going to follow through with payment. Either way it opens up one party to risk. A developer risks putting in the work without payment and the financial backer risks non completion after they pay. For instance, I wouldn't mind writing that extension for you for a hundred or so but I also wouldn't want to do the work before getting paid.

Preauthorize the card or use whatever strategies that Kickstarter uses. Wouldn't be a problem for $10 payments in the same way it would be for freelance contracts.

Version 2.0 would hook payment up to a successful pass of the test hook!

Personally, I went through a similar scenario wanting little small scripts, feature requests or tutorials without having to fund the whole thing myself.

What I thought was that those request/tutorials could potentially be popular and others might be willing to even pay a little bit for it and once the sum is enough, someone would do it and get that pot of money.

For this reason, I made this little site and put some of my "nice to have" needs on there, but unfortunately, not many people go to the site.

Don't really want to promote it, but you could check it out here https://hackermake.com/

Not to be "that guy," but...

unfortunately, not many people go to the site

and

Don't really want to promote it

are probably related!!!

Google Search's keyboard shortcuts are so bad. I hope they learn from DuckDuckGo's. At least give users the option to navigate the search results with 'j' & 'k' like Gmail.

j and k are from vi where those were the arrow keys. h(left)j(down)k(up)l(right) are used in a lot of apps for the reason that a lot of programmers use vi keybindings.

Replying to my own comment:

Just independently saw a link to Bounty Source today. This appears to be very similar to what I'm asking for, although more designed around adding bounties to GitHub issues for features/bugs on existing projects.

https://www.bountysource.com/

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