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Comment by marbemac | Hacker News Reader

Cool idea, but at this point it doesn't seem like a reasonable option for new developers coming into projects.

For example, I picked Coderwall, which is the 2nd project listed on the discover page. There are 11 tasks right now, with a total coin bounty of about 25k. Looking at the ownership, there are about 14.3 million coins allocated, owned primarily by one guy. SO, if I clear out ALL of the tasks for Coderwall, I will receive coins worth ~0.0017% of the project. If 100% of the stated $30k revenue is distributed to coin holders (which it won't be.. gotta pay for servers, etc), I will receive about $50/month for clearing out all of their tasks.. I understand that revenue might grow, but that's a very small amount nonetheless.

Maybe I'm missing something? Is that about how it works?

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I think the dynamics you touched upon are specific to coderwall, their revenue model, their leadership, and their choice of stack(not that any of it is bad, it has just created the situation you described), and you can't judge every startup/product/team on assembly through the same lens. Only a few of the products on assembly are profitable at this time, the majority of things are in idea stage, and I think those projects are the ones where one can get the most value for their work. Of course there is the risk that the product is never completed or turns a profit, but that's all startups.

I'm all in on assembly, my current startups on there are: http://assembly.com/startl http://assembly.com/bootswap http://assembly.com/chatbotify-me http://assembly.com/authorsimple http://assembly.com/brytn

products I did not start but am active on: http://assembly.com/cliq http://assembly.com/dawn http://assembly.com/okvaper

Startup ideas laying around I plan to put up there once I've got the ball rolling on my current ones: http://transtartup.blogspot.com

Assembly will prove valuable if people create value for the ideas put there on the risk that it will pay off, and the smaller the team when the dev gets in, the bigger of an impact and stake they can have/be rewarded.

Disclosure: I work on Assembly

Thanks marbemac! Thats mostly true but there are a couple things to note:

* That math is based last month's earnings. If next month the earnings go up or expenses go down, the payouts would increase. Here is the break down of September: https://assembly.com/coderwall/posts/september-finances

* The proceeds are paid out every month for the life of Coderwall. Several contributors earned over $500-1,000+ for previous contributions even though they didn't contribute much this last month.

* Everyone can participate in determining the value of bounty, if you feel its too low, you can bump it up and additionally discuss it the thread.

* There are a lot of products that don't earn as much stable revenue and therefore bounty values are more aligned with risks and opportunities.

I'd consider 11 tasks for at least $50/mo. for the foreseeable future an interesting investment, at the least.

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