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Comment by 082349872349872 | Hacker News Reader

According to https://www.iso.org/standard/51502.html the standard would cost ~$250, so basically 1 hour of dev time. I can't think of anything competitive I might do as an individual/SME in this space that would come in at under 2 weeks, so compared to actually doing the work, paying for the standard would be in the noise.

Keep in mind that ISO traditionally dealt more with industrial standards; eg something like https://www.iso.org/standard/40447.html costs ~$180, but I doubt anyone who'd be attempting to compete in the "Apparatus for industrial gamma radiography" world would consider that expense as any more burdensome than buying office consumables.

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One hour of dev time? Are you paid half a million a year?

I have been in the past; currently I consult part time, so that's both (a) fully burdened, and (b) not the rate I'd choose if I still wanted 1'800 hours/year.

Chop it down by a factor of 2-4, and the question still remains: is $250 significant compared to the amount of work you're going to have to do to be competitive in the PDF-document processing space?

(for quick hacks, reverse engineering is good enough. you only need the standard once you're processing enough client documents that you need to know all about the long tail of possible but unlikely constructs your code may encounter, after all)

The answer is yes. It's a lot of money for what it is.

ISO is the international standards organization. A software developer in Indonesia earns $500 per month. Half your salary for one document is indeed a lot.

Wow. True; it probably doesn't help that ISO HQ is in Geneva.

How much is 500g emping for you all? From a swiss source it's $25. That might give us a rough idea of price differentials...

[This is all moot though, because the PDF standard is available gratis.]

ISO docs seem to me to be one of those club antigoods.. paying for them doesnt necessarily make them less destructive (dependent on timescales tho, i do believe that standards are an unalloyed good if they are patched with a timeconstant low compared to what standards bodies consider optimal)

Also, could I ask for advice to increase my hourly rate? Mine is closer to $25. Granted I am in Europe, so the ceiling here will be quite different, but I'd love to hear how you did that!

I hear (even for those based in US) that location plays a huge part, but even so, I assume specialization also played a big part?

Yes, specialisation over decades. Perhaps almost as important: I started in the US, and still work almost exclusively for US clients.

In a world where I can work almost as easily 12 time zones away as 2, I'm not sure why these huge continental disparities still exist, but they do.

it's true that the price is not relevant for most companies, but it makes it unavailable for most individuals interested in the topic

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