i've been reading this forum for over a year now... i'm not much of a poster, but sometimes i just can't stand quite... i keep reading all those posts about "looking for developers, but can't pay", "design for free" or "professional design for $90"... i mean, wtf?? does anyone here understands a concept of paying for work and getting paid for the work done??

putting aside all the little kids around here who don't have to pay neither rent nor their bills, are there anyone who actually makes a living by consulting??

From personal experience, free design and cheap design is mainly to get bigger and more customers or to build a portfolio and get experience. People offering these free and cheap services usually do this for pocket change or out of shear boredom.

out of shear boredom you go and get screwed in a pub, you dont work "out of shear boredom"

I never got screwed in a pub :(

Anyway, you do have a point. People expect everything for free, cause "hey, it's the internet!"

Free domains, free hosting (without banners ofcourse!) free design...

I've lost quite a few customers because I dare charge 4.99 for a website, while popular opinion seems to be that it should be free.

Wrote a short story about it on alt.webmasters recently. About Joe who was looking for a free site, without banners 24/7 tech support and unlimited bandwidth.

The story had a sad ending...the host went out of business. No more money and no more site for Joe :(

the thing that bothers me most is all those so called professionals... my definition of a professional is "someone engaged in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career"... a 15 year old kid who wants to buy the next new game can't be called a professional and by definition everything he does can't have "professional" attached to it.

i'm sick and f#cking tired of hearing people say "oh, my son does that too" when they ask me what i do for a living and i reply "i design web sites"... it's precisly because of that sheer volume of self proclaimed "professional designers" the whole web design thing is considered to be "easy".

somehow the concept of "you get exactly what you pay for" is lost...

Originally posted by alexdg
the thing that bothers me most is all those so called professionals... my definition of a professional is "someone engaged in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career"... a 15 year old kid who wants to buy the next new game can't be called a professional and by definition everything he does can't have "professional" attached to it.
As one of those people, I have to agree with you. However, you can't make it black and white like that and blame it all on us. I personally charge money for my work. Not as much as would be charged by a "professional" web design freelancer/agency, but some. I consider what I do to be quality designs. I don't build one up in FrontPage and say it's brilliant (well, that was the first month, but I didn't have clients then, I didn't even try to get clients)

I really have no idea where I'm going with that paragraph so I'll start anew. There are 2 types of us "unprofessionals".[list=1]
The cr@ppy kinda that don't know what they are doing, do it for $10, don't know anything, don't understand the technology, and think geocities is the greatest host because they have ads in the corner
The people who are young, haven't had years of experiance, but want to learn. They emerse themselves in the technology and try to understand what is happening.
[/list=1]I consider myself number 2 :D I don't think we should just lump this into groups and say "Those damn teenages ruining our business! :angry: " True, some are, but some are also trying to learn. Give us a break! We are the future and some of us care. (cliche line!)

Originally posted by alexdg

putting aside all the little kids around here who don't have to pay neither rent nor their bills, are there anyone who actually makes a living by consulting??

Well, I certainly try :-)

(It's not easy, though.. but who said life should be easy...)

heh,

it happens. As with hosting, design is one of those things that you're continually going to be undercut by someone that doesn't need to pay bills, buy software, feed the kids... etc.

You get used to it, even if you never like it. It's sad to see sites you've quoted for never get back to you, only to have a new design a few weeks later that looks like it was built with an axe - for an obviously lower quote.

Some people choke on a quote while other's are suprised it's so low. In the end the quality of your work will show and you'll get the right people coming to you. It's a funny business sometimes... :)

Greg Moore