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omd

I've had the same experience the past few years with car maintenance.

- I can find any owner's manual online.

- I can find detailed instructions for any type of repair in written form or in a Youtube video.

- There are free online courses for anything from changing a tire to becoming a full-fledged mechanic.

- I can find and order any part of my car at wholesale prices.

- The same diagnostic software that repair shops use can be downloaded for free. I can hook up my iPad to my car through a simple USB cable and find out exactly what's wrong with it.

And I still take my car to the local auto repair shop, because I'm not a mechanic.

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That metaphor doesn't work for two reasons. First, over time a car has grown MORE complex, while the tools to create a website have grown LESS complex. At the same time, improved quality in engines, motor oil, and service technology has made routine maintenance not only easier, but also less expensive. Second, auto repair, like most skilled trades, is a great example where specialization of workers gets involved. It's not that you can't spend the time to learn how to repair a car, it's that you consider your time worth more. But in many cases, the cost of building a website has come down so rapidly that it doesn't require a big time commitment for many people.

There will always be room at the high end to solve problems that are complicated, large, or rare. But at the low end, things that were new 20 years ago just aren't anymore. Website development is becoming less like a mechanic and more like pumping gas.

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself.

- If you want to use a theme exactly as it is then fine use it exactly as it is. If you want me to make changes to it, fuck you for thinking I am going to do it for $100.

- Websites are complicated as ever (with tools that don't match their behind the scenes complexity), they appear to be much simpler because a lot of stupid people have spent thousands and thousands of hours providing services for free through modules and themes. But when those things break down or don't work the way you want them to, you will pay for my 15 years of experience or you can just do without.

Hey, no problem. Me and about a dozen friends only have around 3-5 years of experience but are more than happy to do the work for about 1/3 the price you want to charge. If they don't want to pay your rates send 'em our way!

There are also people in the third world that will apparently do it for $5/hr until what you get are shit results that are an embarrassment to look at.

In the case of Wordpress, the cost of labour for development and bug fixes on those thousands of lines (to the client) is effectively free unless you are extending it.

Yes but when you are extending it... it's not trivial. So the price curve jumps from a few hundred dollar to thousands of dollars if you try to do anything significant.

I guess the point of the article is that WP and friends already offer a significant enough amount of functionality straight out of the box or with a very minimal amount of custom code.

Out of curiosity (not being snarky), how's that working out for you, and how long do you think it will be viable to charge that amount?

Web dev, as I see it, is undergoing a race to the bottom. As you say, "the stupid people" are generating good content for free. Yes, there are 1000s of lines of code behind WP.. but those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with them. Do people really pay 1000 to adjust a word press theme?

> generating good content for free

They are not generating it for free. They sell themes at $50 pop to at least 100 people. They make their $5,000. They also charge $100/hr for support.

> those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with the

Until things break. The developer goes away, etc.

> Do people really pay 1000 to adjust a word press theme?

Depends on what level of adjustment. If I charge them $1000 they will get $1,000 worth of services. But I am not willing to engage a client unless they are at least willing to spend that much. Not worth my time.

When things break ... but websites for SMBs break less and less.

To be fair, if you have the time and the room, it really does make a lot of sense to learn some items in care repair. Similarly, being a fully trained plumber is a daunting task. Fixing most problems in your bathroom is actually straight forward.

Of course, some of this comes down to a value judgement. How much is it worth it to you, personally, to not have to mess with a broken toilette? :)

One thing I don't see people talk about enough in the context of home or car repair is liability. Not only do I not want to mess with a broken toilet, but if I screw up and flood my bathroom, it is my fault. If the plumber does it (less likely because they know what they are doing) then they are on the hook. For some things the cost of failure is low, but for many, especially when being paid a programmers salary, the marginal savings (e.g. 15 bucks for an oil change) isn't worth the time and liability.

YMMV (literally :D).

Well, it really depends on the "fix". Most toilette problems can be fixed by a simple $5 part from the store. Hell, the last time a pilot light was out at my place, the plumber literally just scrubbed it with a wire brush. Just calling him out was $130. And no, I did not feel ripped off.

So, yes, there can be liability concerns. But there is also the line of thinking where "everyone should know how to cut the water to their house." Or "Everyone should know where the circuit box is to their house." etc.

Then there is the current reality. Getting stranded in a car accident is something that I would imagine is a lot lower in occurrence nowdays. I know how to change a tire, but I have to confess with cell phones being what they are, I am less concerned about my kids having this skill. I think they'll be ok.

Ha. Scrubbing with a wire brush is worth a dollar - knowing what to scrub with a wire brush was definitely worth $130, right?

I know your joking, but I feel like this is an important thing that's often lost on people. The other day I got in a bit of an argument on oDesk because I turned around a job too quickly. The guy didn't think it was worth the price we agreed upon. I had to explain that that wasn't a 15 minute fix, that was years of studying in university, and years of trial and error, and hard won experience to know how to solve his problem in 15 minutes.

He stiffed me in the end...

The problem with these sorts of sites is in the reputation system, in that reputation is far more important to sellers than to buyers.

If you had left bad feedback on this guy's profile , it would be easy enough for him to create a new account and still get bids for his projects.

OTOH for a seller even neutral feedback is viewed as black mark and starting from scratch is difficult.

I'm not joking at all. I had a consulting customer once that had a problem; I asked him a couple of things on the phone that he insisted he'd checked, and he pleaded that I come to Chicago in person and take a look, when I lived in Southern Indiana at the time. I said I'd bill him a day (which was generous; the whole thing cost me 13 hours).

Turns out that yes, one of the (trivial) things I had asked him about, that he'd said he'd checked, hadn't been checked. He was up and running in half an hour.

Then he didn't want to pay for a whole day because it had been so easy. But he did, in the end, pay for a whole day.

Yeah... I am dead serious that I did not feel ripped off. Learning a lesson is worth every penny, in itself. Having someone else risk a spark near a gas source is a special kind of cost. :)

The hinted solution then is for webshops to provide some form of liability protection for the client.

If the website is buggy (like a leaking pipe), its the webshops fault and reponsibility to fix. If personal information was leaked thanks to bugs in the website (ie, the leaky pipe caused a flooding), then again the webshop is responsible.

If a customer know that they are not responsible to maintain the website security and protection of data records from customers, then I suspect many would be willing to pay quite nicely for not being "on the hook" if something goes wrong.

To make that economical possible for the webshop, we might need to utilize regulations. With plumbers, they are forced to be liable, so everyone is competing with that assumption. It is always part of the price, and they don't have to compete with non-liable plumbers that can undercut the price.

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