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Developer Perspective

Swirly

I’ve come to realize that when I think about some tool I want to build, it’s typically driven by that “scratch your own itch” idea, where a developer does something because they want to solve their own problem. You’ll most often hear this idea attributed to open source software. Often my ideas come about when I think about who controls my data, or the software that I use. I tend to work towards maintaining my own freedom.

But there’s a whole other side… There are developers who develop something, and it’s not because a client hired them to, but because they think it’s a great idea, and sometimes they do follow the “scratch your own itch” idea, but they also think there’s a great money making opportunity worth exploring. Some developers within this realm are fine with creating something, and either selling it off, or letting it die if it “doesn’t work” or doesn’t become popular.

I’m not suggesting that one idea is better or worse than the other, it’s just an observation. I’m really interested to hear what others think…

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Donations will now be accepted…

Donations will now be accepted...

Due to popular demand (one person asked for it) you can now donate money directly to RasterWeb!

What will this money be used for? To guilt me into posting more.

Yeah… that’s the brutally honest truth. Beyond that, I promise nothing.

Keep in mind, I’ve been doing this since 1997. How many other blogs have been publishing for that long, without giving up, quitting, going away, being deleted, getting “lost” on someone else’s hard drive or domain or whatever.

Also, I originally mistyped the title as “Donations will not be accepted…” which I think would have been a more amusing title.

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The Zero Budget Fallacy

Another day, another couple of links to interesting projects…. projects that are interesting not just because they were executed well, and created something worth seeing, but interesting because once again the people behind them claim that they did it for “zero dollars” or “300 dollars” or some other number that is ridiculously low.

As someone who has worked in the creative industry for many (many) years, I know it’s not true, and I’m guessing others in the creative industry also know it’s not true, but does everyone know? Does the general public know? Do potential clients know?

One project was a film that someone worked on for 6 months, and the end result was pretty damn cool, but by claiming the project cost $300 the person is suggesting that their time was worth nothing, and their equipment was worth nothing, and somehow it all just materialized out of thin air.

Another project (again, a film) said it was done with “zero budget” which I guess means the experience of the people involved was worthless, and the $10,000 worth of equipment they used was just sort of magically handed to them, and anyone could have it.

If your band wants to shoot an epic music video for free, and you manage to get your friends with the experience and the equipment to donate their time, and the results are amazing, that’s cool… I’m all for it. Just don’t devalue the efforts of all involved by saying it was done for $0.00

I’m going to assume that the people behind these things know what they are doing, and my guess is that what they are doing is marketing. To that I say well done! It’s clever, I’ll give them that.

But wait, don’t I do the same thing? I mean, I shot like 50 free portraits at BarCampMilwaukee4. I could say it cost me NOTHING but in all honesty, Sam Dodge and I spent a few hours doing the shooting, and I spent many more hours editing and posting the photos, and I had to buy my equipment in order to even take photos (as did Sam) and I had to put in hours to learn how to shoot portraits… Don’t get me wrong, many things can be done for low-costs, but to assume it costs nothing seems silly.

If you look at a project like Help-Portrait, it’s about giving back, from people who are skilled, and have the equipment, and want to help others. It’s only made possible by the fact that people are willing to donate their time (which has some value) and that people have the needed equipment/supplies/etc. (which was probably paid for from some other paying job.)

If it’s a labor of love, and a project you want to do, by all means do it, do it well, do it great, and talk about it. I just have an issue with people telling other people it cost them “nothing” to create something. I’m working on a film and while I’m doing it for very little cost, and even though I’m borrowing a lot of the equipment, there’s still consumables like gasoline, and tapes, and paper, and ink, and things like hard drives and software, and web hosting, and there’s the many, many, many hours I’ve spent (and will spend) shooting, and editing, and eventually promoting it.

There’s an old saying that comes to mind: It’s only free if your time has no value.

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Aaron’s Money

Aaron’s writing is often fascinating. Now Aaron has money, and he’s not sure what he will do with it:

A friend told me to be sure not to let the money change me. “How could it possibly do that?” I asked. “Well, first you’d buy a fancy new car.” “I don’t know how to drive.” “…you’d buy a big house in the suburbs.” “I like living in small apartments.” “And you’d start wearing expensive clothes.” “I’ve worn a t-shirt and jeans practically every day of my life.”

This seems to demonstrate how different people see money’s use. Someone did comment on the idea that “Money doesn’t make you happy” by saying:

Money can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy you freedom. And freedom can buy you happiness.

Freedom = happiness. I agree with that. To me, having enough money to provide me my freedom would allow me to do things I want to do, without worrying if they provide sufficient income. I could make music, and films, and art and not worry about having to sell them. It would also allow me to attempt to improve things like software, the internet, technology, things that I think could help improve people’s lives. I’ve got dozens and dozens of ideas. It’s bascially all those things I try to do now with the spare 10 minutes I have each day, I could just expand that to 10 hours per day.

Right now, the chances of me selling a startup seem pretty slim. So I probably won’t have to worry about sharing Aaron’s problems any time soon…

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My First Freelance Job

Emma was playing an online game, and she was telling me how much it would cost to furnish her house, and how much it cost for a couch, a rug, etc. and finally she say “Hey, I earned $1000 but I didn’t get the money!” to which I had to reply “What are you, a freelancer?”

Har har har…