[Typo3-marketing] Freelance auction for TYPO3 web development?

[JoH]

>> IMHO you cant (and shouldn't) do anything against discounters
>> that will sell services for a low budget. And a cheap service
>> doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be of a bad quality.
>> (A good example is the dental service you can get in poland
>> or hungary compared to the costs of the same service in
>> A one man show can be much cheaper than a big
>> company just because there is only one mouth to feed and not
>> the whole administrative overhead.
>
> But what is the reason to dump prices?
> Maybe this is no topic for the marketing list, but still I think this
> has to be said.
> I will NOT support any dumping processes by giving away extensions
> for projects that I know are low priced.
> In my opinion this is one of the things that keeps us surviving.
> We don't have licensing (written correctly? Don't know) fees with
> typo3 so all we can make money with is project work.
> If the market get's price dumped this keeps me from feeding several
> mouths.
> So if a one-man show only needs to feed one mouth, what's the problem
> in having higher rates so the overall market stays in balance?
> Plus I think that there is one thing that is NOT mentioned about the
> whole one-man idea...
> If you go and break your arm (or spine, due to current experiences)
> your whole work is halted.
> This is of course your personal risk bzw. (what's this in english?
> :)) the risk of your client.
> So please stop this "big companies only use the money for
> administrative ovverhead and switch back to an objective discussion)

Of course I'm not for price dumping and I'm well aware of the fact that a
low price is very hard to be raised again later and usually I make my offers
based on an average price taken from other companies that is far from being
a dumping-price but the objective discussion is: Everybody has to decide on
his own what is the price he is willing to offer his manpower for (be it a
one-man or many-men-show). I doubt that it is very good for the image of
TYPO3 when there is legal action taken against people just because other
people don't like their low prices. Since TYPO3 itself is GPLed you simply
have to live with the fact that service might be sold by amateurs who want
to make some money beside their main job for a cup of coffee.

> And IMO the OMS (one-man-shows) don't have disadvantages when
> claiming higher rates.

One thing you should be aware of: The German market is getting weaker.
People don't want to pay the same amounts of money anymore they have been
throwing away some years ago. So if such a one man show has to face the
situation: Do it for 3.000 instead of 6.000 or don't do it at all. Then
maybe he is forced to say OK just because he wants to make a living during
the next month. This is the disadvantage of a one man show and the reason
why not every one man show is able to keep the rates high. And believe me:
Sooner or later the many men shows will have to do the same ... and they are
already doing it.

The above example is a good one to show that it is not the one who offers
the service but the client that is "dumping" the price.

Jo Hasenau
cybercr at ft
Düsseldorf