
"Website like Amazon" - aqme28
https://www.elance.com/j/website-like-amazon/37294947/
======
grecy
I think this highlights the interesting lack of fundamental understanding by
the general public about software and how complex and expensive it is.

Intuitively people understand things like cars and laptops are expensive, time
consuming and difficult to build requiring complex tools and machinery.

This is not the case with software, where we see time and time again requests
like "same as Facebook..." or "Same as Amazon". People have no idea of the
time, money and expertise that has gone into making these sites function.

I wonder if we can change that lack of understand, or if the general public
will always be at a loss to understand the complexities of software ?

~~~
yareally
Education can also be dangerous in the hands of a potential client. I've had
to explain to clients why they were paying what they were paying for a website
when one of the owners of the company pipped up saying "But it's just a bunch
of HTML, I could do that, so why are you charging us so much?" In this
situation, you really want to say "then go do it yourself if it's so easy",
but that's not the best way to put it.

They know what HTML is, but then when you explain that while the output might
be composed of HTML, it's dynamically rendered from the Server using a
programming language along with data stored in the database and also on the
frontend with JavaScript and CSS. At that point, you kind of lose them and
they're not any better off than a client that didn't know HTML (other than
they now think you're trying to BS them for more money).

I explained the above more eloquently than the short summary above and the
other owners were less distrusting. However, what people are educated on can
also easily backfire to be worse than if they stayed ignorant.

I've also had clients that were actual developers and way too busy to do all
the work they had. Those sort of clients go pretty well and they know what
they're paying for. Not saying that education won't help, but we should be
cautious to how the average person is educated on the behind the scenes
details of software development.

~~~
julian37
_But it's just a bunch of HTML, I could do that_

It sounds like you might have the wrong kind of client. I can only recommend
reading this great piece by fellow HNer patio11:

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-
patrick-...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-
mckenzie-on-why-your-customers-would-be-happier-if-you-charged-more/)

It's full of gems such as:

 _The general thing that people find both in pricing products and in pricing
services is that at the low end of the scale you deal with people who perceive
less value from you, less value from your offering, and have more and more
unreasonable demands. Like if you’re writing iPhone apps, you’ll receive
reviews like “This 99 cent flashlight app didn’t do my taxes, one star!”_

~~~
yareally
That particular client was from my earlier college days of starting out in
freelancing. They didn't give me any real issues after that point, but yes,
they were not the ideal client to what I would want now :)

Patio11 also has some great articles, so I have to agree with your link.

------
fizx
I'll throw out another idea--maybe this is a honeypot for bots making
automated responses to every proposal.

~~~
rodw
Good point. It seems like there is a variation on Poe's Law here, but I can't
quite put my finger on it.

It works as a honeypot either way.

On a more practical note, Derek Siver's advice at [1] to ask bidders to post a
"magic phrase" of some sort has worked really well for me. I literally just
select a couple of random words from /usr/share/dict/words and add something
like:

    
    
      To prove that you have actually read this listing, please include the words 'FOOLHARDY PARADIGM' somewhere in your response. Any bid that does not include these words will be ignored.
    

_prominently_ in the listing. You might be surprised how many responses that
filters out. I was a little surprised at how legitimate some of the automated
(or at least, thoughtless) responses seemed to be. I almost certainly would
have wasted time on some of those without this little test. (I probably
rejected some responses from real people too, but evidently people with
insufficient attention to detail.)

[1] <http://sivers.org/how2hire>

~~~
DoubleCluster
Heh, that blog post is funny. After step 6 the difficult work is done. Writing
code is really not hard if you can define your goals clearly. If you're able
to complete the first steps take a week off to learn programming and then
build the software yourself. Much cheaper and easier.

~~~
RandallBrown
Take a week off to learn programming? Are you serious?

------
facorreia
dear sir we have team ready to start working on your project we have many
experience building website like amazon we deliver on time in your budget

------
itsprofitbaron
You can actually do what he wants for $200 and all you have to do is purchase
a couple of scripts and install them.

\- eCommerce - Magento - Free[1]

\- Auction Module For Magento - $149[2]

\- Forum Module For Magento - $49[3]

\- Classifieds - Free[4][5] - Install Wordpress (Integrate it with Magento
(free plugin[4] and then add Classifieds plugin[5])

\- Jobs (Fiverr) - Free/Paid

If you're feeling lazy, and want to maximise profit just stick a free job
plugin on Wordpress[6] and integrate it with Magento[4].

 _Now go and offer to do it for $1000 and make $800!_

[1] <http://www.magentocommerce.com/>

[2] [http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/auction-
pro.h...](http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/auction-pro.html)

[3] [http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/simple-
forum....](http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/simple-forum.html)

[4] [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/magento-wordpress-
integr...](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/magento-wordpress-integration/)

[5] [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/another-wordpress-
classi...](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/another-wordpress-classifieds-
plugin/)

[6] <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/job-manager/>

~~~
jacquesm
Your time is free? I have a few jobs for you!

------
fusiongyro
These roll through Stack Overflow pretty frequently too. I saw these just the
other day:

"I am planning to create a site almost similar to freelancer in Dot Net. I was
hoping to use some kind of open source if available also I am open to you
suggestion for the same...."

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14868403/looking-to-
creat...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14868403/looking-to-create-site-
life-freelancer-com-in-dot-net)

"I really don’t know enough about web technologies to know the trade offs
involved in using one language over another and I’m looking for some guidance
as to how to go about developing what I need. I will actually be outsourcing
the work but I want to be sure that the developer will be using the best mode
possible and I will probably dictate the language to use."

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14863070/language-to-
buil...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14863070/language-to-build-
website-backend-to-process-gigabytes-of-xml-data)

People are assholes.

------
jacquesm
wget --recursive --no-clobber --page-requisites --html-extension --convert-
links --domains amazon.com --no-parent <http://www.amazon.com/>

There you go. 30.23.35.463, or 1J5dzkNu3SqPUSjerA1JSjvBjXgKktcz5Z if you
prefer btc.

Thank you very much for your contribution.

Now all you need is some cheap hosting and you too can have a website _like_
Amazon.

------
dangerboysteve
Honestly this story should not have been posted. Elance and other such sites
are full of idiotic requests like this.

------
jere
I was sure this was a joke, but I didn't catch a punchline.

Why would you want to jam all of that functionality together anyway?

~~~
stan_rogers
So you can be richer than Jeff Beezo, Mark Zapperberg, Pierre Omigosh and
Craig Newman combined, of course. It's a big-picture idea, real
entrepreneurial stuff; you're probably too mundane to "get it", which is why
you're only worth $750 to the project.

~~~
jere
>which is why you're only worth $750 to the project.

Pffttt... if only. _I can only dream_ of being the lucky devil who wins that
prize and ends up making that kind of cash.

------
noonespecial
The really sad part? Even if you used lesser-god-like powers to actually
deliver, they'd find a way not to pay you the $1000 anyway.

~~~
amorphid
I'm a recruiter who charges by the hour. A new client asked to find a Senior
Rails Developer. I called a friend who does Rails work and filled the job in
30 minutes. I sent the client an invoice for 0.50 hours. The client did not
pay and I learned to fish for higher caliber clients.

------
ErikAugust
Elance/oDesk gets ridiculous - but I've heard stories of the Digg prototype
being the product of oDesk freelancers and a couple thousand dollars.

Never have found proof/merit to this but I still wonder... anyone know?

~~~
drewblaisdell
The Digg prototype was the product of a single freelancer and two _hundred_
dollars.

~~~
dbond
If I remember an episode of diggnation correctly Rose paid $10 per hour,
though this is probably wrong. 20 hours is doable for a prototype of the first
version of digg.

~~~
drewblaisdell
I remember this episode too. It looks like he misspoke judging by what I can
find online: the eLance forums have people correcting $200-$300 estimates
saying that Kevin Rose actually spent more like $2k (as the parent of my
comment claimed, sorry).

------
shadesandcolour
And this is why I don't deal with business majors or anyone else at school who
has the greatest idea for the so-called "next big thing", but has no idea how
the technology would work.

~~~
eropple
Obligatory:

<http://whartoniteseekscodemonkey.tumblr.com/>

------
Falling3
What's truly scary about this is the fact that it's attracting serious
bidders.

~~~
LiveTheDream
These are not serious bidders. They are robo-applications or blindly
copy/pasted applications by cut-rate shops that are mind-numbingly bad at
development.

~~~
ben1040
Elance and sites like it are crazy uncharted territory for me.

Are there really folks who run bots to scrape Elance, put in a bid for the
minimum budget price (someone did bid $750, according to the min/max spread on
there), and hope they get picked?

What happens when they _do_ get picked, and they just agreed to build Amazon
for $750? At that point I guess $750 is just so low an amount that neither
party really cares to fight over it when the "developer" can't deliver?

~~~
krapp
It's very difficult to get work there, but it is possible, and easier if you
don't fall into the trap of trying to game the system (treating proposals like
actual proposals will help you stand out more.) Don't bother with their BS
about "verifying your identity" either.

But yeah, if you can get real work then run far far away. It is the proverbial
shallow money trench where good developers die like dogs (only without money
or that many good developers)

------
fosap
There are services that sell copycat websites like Twitter, ebay, and social
networks and I have even seen a youtube clone for about that price.

I have never seen them in productions besides the demos, but i guess this is
what they are looking for.

------
DigitalSea
This guy isn't really asking for much is he? He not only wants someone to
build a "better" clone of Amazon but also; auctions, classifieds, forums and a
freelance jobs section on-top of what would be an extremely complicated
project not-to-mention expensive. I bet the winner of this project will just
skin a copy of Magento and install a couple of plugins in unison with a bot
script that would scrape all of Amazon's categories and add them. Good luck to
the guy, I hope his pockets are deep.

Wouldn't surprise me if the project ends in a skinned copy of Wordpress with
WP-Ecommerce installed for the store functionality, haha.

------
niggler
Strictly speaking, "Amazon.com" wasn't specified. How about
<http://amazon.net/> -> <http://novaone.net/>

~~~
treycopeland
This is a true statement. Invoice and billing system makes sense here.

------
henryw
Actually, he wants more than Amazon for $750 to $1000

"I want all amazons catergories plus

#1. Freelance Jobs ( just like fiverr )

#2. Auctions ( ebay catergories )

#3. classifieds ( Craigslist catergories without Personals) need to be able to
charge or make free for listings

#4. Forums "

~~~
mirkules
I wonder how many orders of magnitude more money it would take to build
something like that and how long would it take...

------
Doublon
"Desired Skills MySQL, ActionScript, CSS, PHP"

Niiiice

~~~
gokulk
Maybe performance was not their goal. Just a website like Amazon built on
ActionScript. Ah the plot thickens

------
cocoflunchy
Actually it's Amazon + Fiverr + Ebay + Craigslist + forums...

~~~
Doublon
Maybe AWS too

~~~
oftenwrong
That'll be an extra $20

------
zipop
"Budget: $750 - $1,000"

Too bad. I would have done it for $749.

------
iomike
I'm expecting a deadline more comical than their request. For $1000, they may
get one day from someone.

------
timjahn
This is one of the main motivations behind my new startup matchist
(<http://matchist.com/talent>). Working to help developers never have to see
these kinds of requests again.

~~~
krapp
There needs to be a site like yours for those of us who aren't necessarily
top-tier developers but who still don't want to get treated like dung-rollers,
though.

~~~
timjahn
To us, top tier doesn't solely mean "best at technical skills". It's also
composed of great communicator, professional presentation, people person, etc.

You need to be good at what you do but that's only part of what we consider a
quality developer.

~~~
krapp
I did sign up a while ago but I wasn't able to get the phone interview managed
(which doesn't speak well for professional presentation I suppose.) I'll
probably try again once I get a current job behind me.

------
balabaster
... for $1,000 do you want it to scale as well or do you just want something
faked that'll work for 1 concurrent user? Do you need full reporting and
analytics? Load testing? Unit tests? etc.? Ridiculous.

~~~
CaveTech
You almost make it sound as if it could be done if you didn't care about
scalability and "nice to haves". Make me the site he described, and have it
work for only 1 user, even half the time, and I'll give you $1000 gladly.

~~~
Dylan16807
For a handful of users you can proxy basically the entire site and reduce your
code to a userscript and maybe some database callbacks.

------
farabove
Meet this all the time And people saying we have this big idea, we can't say
what is is because we are afraid that you will take it (its that good). But
how much does it cost us for you to create it?

------
tapsboy
May be someday in the future, when AI robots can program and programming (as
we know it today) becomes a commodity, $1000 might be feasible

------
jessaustin
Seems pretty ambitious!

------
ericcholis
ActionScript? That's the thing that really threw me....

~~~
stan_rogers
Get with the program -- it's all about distributed server-side Flash now.

~~~
mahmud
Node.swf

------
alexrson
I want a painting like the Mona Lisa.

------
logn
Bids:

Avg $97,504 | High $500,000 | Low $750

------
joezhou
brb guise, making a flash-based amazon for $1k faster than amazon

------
leeoniya
i dont know actionscript :(

------
twotwotwo
zombo.com.

