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As contractor I like jobs where I can basically recommend “Just don’t build this at all.” For example the young startup that wanted credit card payment and automation for essentially a two digit number of invoices per year for a target market where bank transfer would be much more common. Replaced with an excel sheet. Customer happy. I don’t want to build crap just for the money that’s in building crap. Let me actually add value.

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Yeah same here, what’s strange is you have to explain that to clients too. They don’t get you’re contracting because you like to actually do things and helping them is part of the reward. Otherwise you’d just be an employee.

Umm... did you earn the kind dof money the pointless project would have gotten you?

Probably no but they surely built goodwill with that company and as a result can help them build a good reputation. This is often overlooked but people will remember that.

Or they could just be satisfied with doing the right thing, rather than trying to extract as much money as they could.

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