What's wrong with bank transfers?
Speaking to a potential employer, I would say that if 30 USD is expensive versus the salary you are paying, then you are paying too little.
As an example, my employer hires developers in the Philippines and pays on average 5000 USD each per month. The cost of the wire transfer is 0.6% of that. I think we pay more per month on phone service just to talk to them.
As a developer, you have all the power to become a black hole of resources, sucking in all the money paid to you, the time of everyone who deals with you and all positive energy. That's why the start-up gurus will tell you that one bad hire can sink a company. On the other end, you have developers who can will into existence the sun, the moon and the stars. Location and nationality don't matter.
I think what people get caught up on is they think it's about developer skills. But paradoxically, when you are hiring a developer, it's those development skills which are the last things on the list of importance aside from the fact that they should be present.
https://80000hours.org/articles/skills-most-employable/
There was an HN thread on this article the other day. Agree with it or not, but I think all those things above programming is what separates a disaster looking to pick up a check from an A-team operator who doesn't have to worry about getting work.
But for most programming jobs, developers are interchangeable and a big part of hiring a developer(remote or not) in developing countries is that you can pay a fraction of the salary you would be pay if you were hiring a dev in US/Europe. Hence this in essence is one of the major selling points.
What are the specific things would you say one can do to sell themselves at that rate keeping in mind the above mentioned point?
If you want to know how to sell software (or services), I couldn't even touch the advice which tptacek and patio11 regularly give on HN. Do a search for their threads and run with their advice. As per patio11's profile, you could even email him and there is a 70% chance of him getting back to you.
[0] Busy with work and kids leaves me with less time for the Internet generally, as you can probably gather by e.g. my HN participation being "a time or two weekly" rather than "multiple times every day for years."
That depends. I should've clarified that the remote workers are Contractors, not Employees, and the hiring period and costs vary. For example, I'd hired a contractor in India to write a small Python script -- took him 20 minutes - (1 time gig) for 50 USD. If I were to do a bank transfer for a 30$ fee, that's over 50% of the cost of the actual work / services rendered.
But I get your point. For remote employees on a USD salary, it's usually 2000 USD or more per month, and in that case, Bank Transfer may be feasible as it's convenient for both parties.