Show HN: Tipping culture for developers on the Web

https://tips.60devs.com

by 60devs • 11 years ago

38 32 11 years ago

tips.60devs.com

Brainix• 11 years ago

Great idea! Why hasn't anyone tried this before?

xentronium2• 11 years ago

They did (gittip).

JackuB• 11 years ago

… and Flattr … and TipTheWeb … and Gratipay

emddudley• 11 years ago

GitTip is now Gratipay, correct?

danieltillett• 11 years ago

This is a good idea for a site like stack overflow, but it suffers from the same problem that many ideas suffer from which is you need a network to be valuable, but you don't offer value to the first users. To get out of this trap you either need a lot of money or luck.

I want to be positive - the best I can offer is go very niche. Dominate a very tiny language/framework and build out.

x5n1• 11 years ago

Does not seem as if this concept has proven to work yet. Why? Developers are mostly thrifty and looking to solve a problem. Most of the time they can do this without help using Google. Developers also don't value their time enough or properly and like solving problems, so they would be more likely to try to solve the problem themselves than pay someone for it. That's why you need managers... developers are often not good decision makers in terms of utilizing their time most profitably.

binarymax2• 11 years ago

Those are some interesting stereotypes you've got there. Developers don't value their time?

stefan_work• 11 years ago

I've noticed this as well. Most developers will spend 40 hours building a wheel instead of offering to wire up a pre built solution that costs money.

Menge• 11 years ago

These stereotypes are very similar to the ones misapplied in helping the impoverished. What studies actually found is that if you give the impoverished money they spend it pretty well.

If you gave a developer company accounts to spend as they saw fit then they would probably make good decisions too. Why a developer would give their own money is a mystery to me as any time they save has to still be used for their employer.

Instead, at best a manager can make these decisions and even they are usually limited by corporate policy which must deal with the complexity of tax and corporate law.

If you want to fix the problem, push a tax compliant product that startups can use to supply their developers with quarterly funds for this purpose and then advertise it as a benefit of their work environment.

HeyLaughingBoy• 11 years ago

You're ignoring the growing population of developers who are hobbyists or not professional software developers. A lot of these people just want to get something done and don't have their egos tied up in the solution.

I think this is a good idea. Many people accept help online and feel guilty about getting extensive assistance for free because they understand someone went out of their way to help and it's human nature to not want to take advantage of others.

There are already a lot of sites where I've seen people post small bounties like "$25 to anyone who can help me with this small problem." They can't afford to have someone write an entire program for them, but it's worth paying someone to get past a thorny issue.

eevilspock• 11 years ago

Are you saying developers aren't as smart as teachers, or are cheapskates even though they make far more money?

A Sharing Economy Where Teachers Win: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10179385

"To date, Teacher Synergy, the company behind the site, has paid about $175 million to its teacher-authors, says Adam Freed, the company’s chief executive. The site takes a 15 percent commission on most sales."

"Teachers often spend hours preparing classroom lesson plans to reinforce the material students are required to learn, and many share their best materials with colleagues. Founded in 2006, TeachersPayTeachers speeds up this lesson-plan prep work by monetizing exchanges between teachers and enabling them to make faster connections with farther-flung colleagues."

oneJob2• 11 years ago

I love how the cartoon at the top of the page shows two "indie-developer" looking characters in all their idiosyncratic glory, but then lower on the page the user profile photo is of some corporate tool looking guy. It's kinda like the the joke that is "tipping culture". One supposes it is to show sincere gratitude and be merit based, but almost inevitably it ends up being like any other economic exchange, just providing cover for employers who are unwilling to provide a fair wage to their employees. GitHub is already populated with code generated on the unacknowledged narrative of "free ($) OSS". This seems to provide some whitewash.

60devs3• 11 years ago

Thank you for your comment. It's a good point, we'll change that profile photo asap :)

copsarebastards• 11 years ago

So you're going to whitewash it better? I think you missed the point.

Not that I care, I think it's still an interesting project.

rch• 11 years ago

Tipping is the wrong model... would you tip an oncologist who gave you a second opinion for free? Nope. You would just be very grateful.

walshemj• 11 years ago

And its insulting to a professional if any one working in the industry thinks that tipping is acceptable then they need to be "managed" out to Starbucks

60devs3• 11 years ago

Thanks for you comment,

would you tip an oncologist who gave you a second opinion for free? Nope. You would just be very grateful. - basically, this is a reason why it's called "Tipping culture", when you go to a restaurant you have a choice to pay or not pay a waitress there, and nobody can force you to leave tips, right? - But, usually people don't say, that the service was super nice and that's all :( normally they leave tips.

Here, it's the same. Previously, you didn't have an ability to pay developers who helped you and now you have it, so it's up to you to pay or not to pay. It's all voluntary.

tomjen3• 11 years ago

Please don't lump us in the same category as waitresses. I have all the respect for their job, but I really don't want to work for 8 usd/hr.

delinka2• 11 years ago

"...PayPal." No thanks. "BitCoin..."

OK, where's the Stripe & Square integration?

60devs3• 11 years ago

We've chosen PayPal, because of few very cool features:

1. It supports B2B payments. We us this model, because we don't want to keep your money. Whenever you want to tip somebody you do it directly to that person.

2. You can still receive money even without being a member of PayPal. If you are not a member and somebody makes a payment to you, PayPal sends an email asking you to register and receive your money.

3 It's very simple for you (you just need to put an email address).

delinka2• 11 years ago

The problems with PayPal are varied, sundry, many, etc. I've had my own problems with them that convince me I'll never go back. "Simple" is not enough of a reason to trust PayPal with my business ever again.

bobwaycott• 11 years ago

Sadly, "tipping culture" is all too often a product of employer refusal to pay employees a living wage. They shift that burden onto their patrons, forcing service workers to be dependent upon the generosity of their employer's customers.

Why on earth we'd ever want to see "tipping culture" brought into the world of software development is beyond me.

Worst-case scenario I'm imagining right now:

This whole "tipping culture" thing catches on. A rough amount of tips developers earn becomes public information somehow. Unscrupulous employers use this to offer lower salaries and/or raise increases. This persists for years, allowing salary negotiations industry-wide to employ an expectation of tipping to replace good wages, driving salaries down to incredibly low levels. This becomes institutionalized to the point that developers become just another kind of service worker, dependent on their tips to actually survive.

Best-case scenario I'm imagining right now:

Worst-case scenario happens. SV Developers get a harsh dose of reality and humility by learning what a horrible thing "tipping culture" is. SV Developers become incredibly more conscious of how people live on non-SV salaries.

Show HN: Tipping culture for developers on the Web

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