This contest is not meant for Ferengi such as yourself, but the noble hackers of the Federation. And Vulcans.
I believe this wraps it up, lets move along now...
A lot of people would jump on this kind of thing for free. Don't like the money? Don't enter the contest.
I'm flattered they'd ask me for my opinion.
It's a fun, hard, puzzle. Some people enjoy fun hard puzzles. This puzzle gives those people a small chance of winning some cash as well as giving them a fun hard puzzle to work on.
10k's a hell of a lot more than I get for developing my open-source projects...
$10,000 and a line-item on your resume that's pretty hard to beat.
They are also giving out 5 letters of recommendation, which may be even better than a line-item on your resume.
Fortunately for you they're not forcing you to do it.
Truth. I don't even get out of bed for less than 10k.
If they can get solutions at that price, why pay more? Besides, having that on your resume pretty much guarantees future consulting $.