
Ask HN: Would you pay for someone to answer your StackOverflow question? - drorco
EDIT: Just to be clear. It would not be happening on StackOverflow but on a different external site.<p>If so how much?<p>Would you consider paying more if she/he would personally help you fix it by modifying your code?<p>Do you think this kind of service is needed?<p>Update:<p>There are many unanswered questions on StackOverflow. I wonder if money was involved maybe a large part of them would have been answered. The question is, if these questions were important to their askers, and why people haven't answered them.<p>I agree that adding real money into StackOverflow may ruin the whole eco-system, though I wonder if maybe there's a place for it somewhere else.
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objclxt
> "Would you consider paying more if he would personally help you fix it by
> modifying your code?"

He _or_ she, really. Personally, I find the "please fix my code [paste large
amount of code here]" questions on StackOverflow to be of little value to the
community as a whole. I don't mind answering them, but if I look at my own
profile (which is a fairly high ~17k rep) my answers that have been most well
received/up-voted are almost universally problems that have been abstracted
away from "fix teh code" type questions.

In a way, bounties are already a kind of payment, if you consider reputation
to be a currency of sorts (and I would).

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drorco
Fixed. :)

Bounties provide a bigger incentive, however it doesn't always work. Do you
think that if instead of 50 points of bounty it was replaced with $50, more
people would be getting answers for these questions?

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wturner
I think it's a question as to whether someone who has a degree of expertise
has any reason to be motivated by money when the payments are so small. In a
weird way I think software engineers would be doing the internet a service by
accepting small amounts instead of doing stackoverflow exclusively.This way
the trend can nudge back toward people getting paid for information - even if
it's just little amounts. On the flip side I wouldn't mind paying small
amounts for my questions that would otherwise be answered on stack overflow.
But it would be very small. $1 here, $10 there.

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aniketpant
StackOverflow is one of the most helpful community I have come across the
Internet and I am an active user. I ask questions at times and try to answer
whatever I can. Most of my doubts are answered on SO because someone might
have already hit that bump before.

When I answer questions on SO, I never think about earning via my answer
because it doesn't make sense. Most people answer on the website for the
simple reason of helping someone out. If I don't answer thinking that I won't
get anything out of it, then someone else will answer for sure.

I feel that monetizing a part of SO will take away a lot of fun for people
like me.

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WesleyThurner
I think it would depend on how fast/important the question was to me. But I
might pay up to $20 depending on what it is.

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jlengrand
Isn't it already the kind of thing bountify is doing
[https://bountify.co/](https://bountify.co/)?

I have been really happy with the service so far, even though people tend to
really put low tips compared to the amount of work required

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chrisbennet
StackOverflow does such a good job now I don't think you could compete. S.O.
won't do your homework for you so that's unserved market. If your service was
called "Help Me Cheat On My Homework" it might work. ;-)

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ivanaj
Well, I have seen few times in user's profile that write "If you think I was
helpful feel free to send something from my Amazon's wishlist."

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jamesjguthrie
I think if SO suddenly became a pay-for-an-answer website it would quickly die
and be replaced with something else that's still free.

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geffchang
Experts-Exchange is still alive.

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drorco
In Experts-Exchange you pay for membership, not pay-per-answer. Actually their
business model is quite awkward imo. If you answer enough questions, you don't
need to pay which is a weird incentive for supporters imo.

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kohanz
The Experts-Exchange UI, last time I saw it, is a catastrophe.

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s3b
How would you react if I tell you I'll only answer if you pay me? (Especially
if I know you've paid in the past)

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drorco
Depends on how bad I need your solution.

Another question, would you answer a question for money which otherwise you
wouldn't have been answering?

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s3b
You probably won't motivate me with small amounts. As they say, "I don't get
out of bed for less than $10000". :) However if you offer to donate to
charity, I'll probably be inclined to help you.

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drorco
Hmm that's very interesting.

What kind of charity organizations you had in mind? OSI or others which are
not related to coding?

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PonyGumbo
If you're going that route, you should allow the contributor to pick from a
selection of charities.

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6thSigma
I think a new Stackoverflow-like site with money involved would be near
impossible to take off.

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kolinko
As a pro programmer - if I have a problem that I didn't manage to find/google
a solution, then it's probably something crazy tough and that only a person in
my specific niche can help with. It would probably be too expensive for a
service to find such a person & to pay him or her for a reply.

On the other hand, I can imagine novices finding use with this site.

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drorco
And if it was costing a few tens of dollars, would it be reasonable?

