Will adult design ever reach $200 a month?

50........

But I SONNED you when you made that reply mistakenly equating CR, RVN, and PI's real estate markets with relative economic health. Shouldn't showing your faulty logic by pointing out external causes for real estate appreciation count for being 'smart'?

I agree with you that outsourcing is a good thing, I was just focusing on the issue of why the price hasn't collapsed much further. My guess is that local attitudes, infrastructure, and possible tax/regulatory scenarios may have something to do with it... at least until the next low cost labor porn friendly country is found.

I explained the correlation i provided. Please read all my posts. I stated that real estate growth is only a "tell"....but those countries by no means deserve to be lumped in with poverty stricken 3rd world countries. These countries are steadily getting on pace to have more education in key fields than America.

I'm afraid that you havent made a single decent point so far as to why prices would possibly go down.


The signs point to their economies going up, cost of living is going up in the countries, outsourcing prices have steadily gone up since their first inception, the demand is higher than the supply.....Where is this room for a 400% pullback in prices?

outsourcing is for penny pinching jews who are only interested in making slight profets, people who are willing to invest the exta $ to have things done correctly always end up on top.

To each his own but this is deffinitely a misconception. Outsourcing if done correctly provides as good of talent , or with some professions, better talent at a lesser price. That price can then be passed down to the consumer. The employees are happy and making more money than ever.

It deffinitely takes jobs overseas....but maybe if American employees weren't such unappreciative little shits most the time then they would keep their jobs. Its hard to find good talent here that doesnt think its their god given right to have a good job. Thats why I have such a tight knit group here...once i find people i like i hang onto them

lol lol and lol, just because you are some jewish guy who couldnt make it in america and decided to exploit underpaid workers DOESNT MAKE YOUR WORKERS BETTER.

overseas wokers and ESPECIALLY designers in general are HORRIBLE. the lack of communication and lanuage barriers arent worth the time.

people who outsource local jobs for their own profets are nothing but SCUM.

i have outsouced once, and i was 99% unsatisfied, if i didnt know my photoshop i would have had 2 weeks wasted.

there is no such thing as "better talent at a lower price" i compare outsourcing just the same as cheap cars.

although some cheap business man will try to swing you a deal for "less price better qaulity" it is in 99% of the time better to invest in your own economy.

it is penny pincher business men, that do not care about local development and only about personal gain that help contribute to downward spirals in ecomony.

you are a piece of shit if you take adavntage of low wages and not local work.

local work and training is ALWAYS better than wannbe copies from overseas.

do not EVER let business men like this try to fool you as if they are somehow helping in the longterm.

Just wanted to make one more comment before I take off...


I took a moment just now to think about why this topic gets me so fired up...



The pricing thing...thats just my love of debates getting the better of me...no hard feelings



The other stuff though...its not even a matter of defending myself. It pisses me off because I really am protective over the faction of my employees who are overseas. I know each of them personally and they lover their work, love their job, they are just so appreciative....Every one of them is well aware that they could move to America and earn 5x as much....but they are also aware that it would cost 10x as much to live. They love their country, love their homes, love their families and are quite happy with their situations and so when people come out and make comments that basically say that they are getting screwed....just urks me because this is 99% of the time coming from people who are so uneducated on the issue and dont know what these people's desires are. Its so degrating. These are smart people...they know their options and they have chosen this one. Go to Microsoft....you'll see there are plenty of programmers there that are the other side of it who came to america....some want to stay put...why fault them for that?

"American employees weren't such unappreciative little shits most the time then they would keep their jobs."

Thats not the problem.
Infact quite the opposite. Companies are not taking American workers because they are outsourcing for cheaper labor. Not only that but in most cases this outsourced labor is more skilled than an American Employee. Thats a fact, there is nothing that can be done about it, cept maybe put more back into the word "Education". A deal is a deal, companies have no allegiance to people, especially employee's.

Why should they?

In knowing that fact...
The Disgruntled American "Employee" will remain unemployed, work for Mc Donald's, Wendy's, Walmart who knows. Ya got any idea how many IT guys are out of work and down working long hours at Mervyns? ALOT!

Bad education in America.
To expensive living in America yet there are no jobs to support the costs.
The ghetto's are becomming more frequent.

It is the decline of a once great civilisation failing for many of the same reason's other great nations have fallen in history.

Poor Education.
Poor Policy in not only domestic issues but foriegn.
Over Taxation.

The worst being poor education, producing underskilled and naive grunts that do only as they are told. Some sad days for America and Americans.

I am an American and I see shit fallen apart, some of it is due to Outsourcing, however it is the American Government that is not protecting the interest's of the population regarding foriegn policy and trade. Our American government has turned into a government holding the interests of Profiteer's.

why the hell should we give a shit about the local asian economy if we are from north america?

how many chinese are investing in north american designers?

cheap labour and cheap products is never the route to go, invest in the people that will in turn invest back in you.

I wish more people would understand there's a fucking huge difference between design and marketing. Yeah you can hire a monkey at $10.00 a hour to do some photoshop work but can they make you money?
I normaly have more than I can handel with Design (marketing) work because of repeat custom. The answer is very simple make people money and they return.
I know I charge way more than most US based designers but I understand whats really needed and that sets me apart.

PS: I am proud to be an American make no mistake.
It just sucks seeing shit hit the fan every day.

I appreciate the time you took to write that. But let's focus on the consumption issue....

SHOULD Americans/EU people/Canadians pay more for locally made products and locally performed services when there's such a huge savings if they were to source these from overseas?

Isn't there an opportunity cost tradeoff here? Example: If America has the choice of producing 5 items that makes it 1M or 5000 items that make it $10 each. Shouldn't it be outsourcing the 5000 items and just focusingon the 5 items doing the 1M? Same with design services... instead of doing $10 galleries or whatever shouldn't the focus instead be on holistic design and overall marketing and performance along with higher capital inputs?

There's opportunity costs at play here.

Also, aren't most GFYers webmasters as in businessmen who are concerned about the cost of their inputs and profit margins?

I would love to see one of these high class $125 sites. Please post a url!

It's definately worth paying a few bucks more for:
- A designer that can speak (and type) proper english.
- One that can add text to a site without having to copy it from another site (originality and creative flare)
- A designer that is on during US business hours, who the hell wants to wait until 8pm until their designer starts work, screw around with liasing with them...dealing with their public holidays, not knowing if they are alive etc etc..
- Knowing you can drive down the road and beat the living crap out of him if he tries to screw you.

Outsourcing is good, and can be great, but it's not for everyone .


If you want to save the extra few bucks on outsourcing, why are you buying brand name clothes? Cheaper brands are just as good according to your logic.

DING DING DING!!!! Someone finally got it. The point is the lower end shit can always be outsourced, but the capital heavy/formation, overall marketing, and strategy cannot be (and that's the part that pays the most). So the most efficient arrangment would be--outsource the work stuff, retain the capital stuff. That is what's happening in manufacturing, capital markets, and everywhere else.

And guess what... slowly the US work force is being steered towards the latter. THAT is the future... not crying over the jobs lost due to last tech age's products like automobiles, etc etc.

"Also, aren't most GFYers webmasters as in businessmen who are concerned about the cost of their inputs and profit margins?"

LOL, No man.

Most people that think they are "Webmasters" around here, seriously do not really know what they are doing or talking about. It all depends what kinda drug they are taking. 1 Day they are millionaire pimps and the next day they can not afford a keyboard.

Only thing most are concerned about is there next fix.

I was being half sarcastic about the american employees comment. But American employees are generally lazier with worse attitudes. In many industries the American employees are far less educated as well which you hit on

This is why I am always careful to say outsourcing can only be done successfully if done "correctly".


When i manage teams whether they are in the US or somewhere else....I have marketing guys THEN i have designers and programmers.

Designers for the most part arent marketing experts whether its US or somewhere else. To be successful in any market you need HIGHLY qualified, HIGHLY skilled, HIGH specialized people.....With the proper people in place it works like clockwork....

SO, i totally agree with you....how can you expect a designer in Russia to know how to market to an American audience. There are some designers here and there that i'm sure can...but generally speaking its impossible. However, what IS possible is to have the right people in the right places and then you can have success.


For software development....we sell mostly to US audience. Do you think we have the people coming up with the ideas overseas? no way. Outsourcing is for black and white stuff....1+1=2 ...For checkers......Leave the chess for within your own office

What did this comment have do with my comment?


Businesses invest where they feel their greatest opportunity is. I was stating that I think the reason why this issue hits home to me is that the way people talk about outsourcing as a "sweatshop" is so degrating to these people who are very intelligent and well aware of their options within the country or outside of the country. Don't put someone down for liking their homeland and being around their familiy. Sure , they'll never drive a ferarri because some things arent cost of living dependent. But they can have a very nice home, MUCH nicer than what they could be able to afford in the USA and can stay close to their family. There is nothing wrong with that decision.

Okay, point noted. Let's reiterate the question.... aren't most of the people that buy design services businessmen? As in individuals who are concerned about the cost of their inputs and profit margins?

"there is no such thing as "better talent at a lower price" i compare outsourcing just the same as cheap cars."

I dont know if racist is the right word...but jeez, the truth is its people like you who are the scum. you refer to overseas people as inferior to americans when they have had the same or better education in many cases. You think because someone is some white-privaleged american it makes them a better employee? The overseas programmers arent better because they are cheaper...they are better because they have a higher level of education and more importantly a far better work ethic....

come on man, you're canadian.....if anyone should be hating on americans it should be you

Outsourcing is not about 'taking advantage' of someone's poverty. It's all about the differences in economic development and opportunity costs...

The way some union leaders talk, they think the US should still be manufacturing horse buggy wheels instead of jet engines...

My philosophy: focus on building jet engines and stealth technology, leave the cars and other shit from yesterday to someone else

Same with design--US designers should focus on overall marketing/running marketing firms instead of the small stuff they can outsource

Outsourcing is YOUR FRIEND. use it wisely to add value to your whole business.

For example: AlienQ--he could be generating contracts for gallery designs then subbing out the work and checking them and increasing their quality.

Cooperation makes more money than blame and guilt mongering.

Don't waste your time on Metaman.

He is a pointless troll.
Only mission is to bug and bother.

Anyways I am out for the night.

Cheer's.

This is true...

But anyone who actually has a good product and plan in place would realize its worth it to spend an extra couple g's up front to have a good website or whatever. I think you can find quality design overseas, but to work for an american audience the design process has to be managed by an American firm to guide things in the right direction. Thats why 100 dollar designs will never work ....But you can spend 2500 instead of 5k for a design that is hybrid between domestic and offshore and get a great result and still save a few bucks.

"For example: AlienQ--he could be generating contracts for gallery designs then subbing out the work and checking them and increasing their quality."

I do that on a daily basis already, more so I just refer business and moderate here and there.

I think we finally agree on something


You really hit on the point i've been trying to make. Just like other companies take care of part of the process overseas and part of the process domestically....This same mind set can be applied to a number of other areas of business and people are finetuning what the proper mix is.

Take for instance Dell. They moved 90% of their tech support to India. Backfire BIG TIME.


They are currently restructuring. Maybe something that would make more sense would be to have tech support agents for email and live chat tech support based in india and call center support based in USA.

You seem to be acting as if this is some strange wonderful development. Health care is free in Australia (and much of the West), and like I already pointed out the cost of higher education here even is basically insignificant.

Exactly. You are more than just a designer. You are a strategist and overall holistic marketer. That is what alienq designs is about. The small stuff can be outsourced but the house label--that is what counts. Ultimately, the client doesnt give a fuck who did the cell spacing or color shading, he cares only if the AlienQ magic and conversion and profitmaking is there. And only YOU--AlienQ--can do that, regardless of who you sub some of the grunge work to.

That is how outsourcing should be--marrying US technology/capital/skill/management with overseas muscle. Everyone wins and moves forward.

I think it's naïve to beleive all the current 'yesterday jobbers' can be steered to highly skilled 'intelligence' work. Many simply don't possess the capacity.

How many people do you know still can't even get the flashing 12:00 off a VCR? How many only know of the internet as "that place Al Gore made" and wonder how many lanes there are on the Information Superhighway?

It's a marvellous dream to presume that everyone will elevate to some higher mental state and unyolk themselves from menial tasks, turning into some sort of modern-day Eloi and leaving the rest of the planet as your nascent Morlocks... but short of a peruvian-style return to eugenics and forced sterilization/extermination of the poor and stupid citizenry, it's just not going to happen for the vast, vast majority.

There's also a very long way to fall with these "yesterday" jobs. Take a look at US exports: #1 on that list is automobiles. After that comes chemicals, mostly petroleum based (plastics etc). THEN comes semiconductors, pharma, aircraft, industrial machines and so on. The 'old' industries (ie. agriculture, automobiles, petrochemicals etc) make up over half of all export revenues. That's a whole bunch of people to be "retooled". This is a major problem when viewed in light of the distressingly poor state of education... which is having a hard enough time churning out kids who can read, let alone tooling up to handle a massive onslaught of older, slower, ossified adults needing retraining.

I have no doubt that SOME lucky/talented few will end up winning big on the latest shift, but the vast majority are going to get seriously fucked... and policy wonks closing their eyes, clicking their heels together three times and chanting "the invisible hand solves all, the invisible hand solves all" might themselves the first up against the wall when the revolution comes. A country allows millions of formerly comfortable middle-class workers become impovrished and disenfranchised at its peril.

already available if you know which freelance sites to for look online.

.

Since 1980 we have entered the Digital age... where are the teeming masses of 'unretoolable' proletariat that you speak of?

Plus your image of putting people against the wall 'come the revolution' is Trotskyist....

The only people against the wall when the technology revolution (the next wave crashing against the current wave) are people who don't want to retrain.

America has gone through SEVERAL tech revolutions from the end of the great rail building of the 1850s to the mass assembly age to the post world war II marketing revolution to now, the digital age... next stop, the nano age. I still see Americans having a job and enjoying their standard of living. When did this dread scenario of untrainable masses ever happen?

Helloooooooooooooo????

I don't do acting - I do webmastering.

Healthcare is free where I originated from as well and these is nothing strange about that. The difference is when you compare what is a supposedly a "poor" country (and it is!) to places like the US where ya get ripped off for an asprin.

And.. the quality of healthcare is annually one point up or down from the US - that's what's strange.

Unemployment lines. Welfare lines. Killing each other in the streets of the inner cities. Burgeoning the populations of the ever-expanding for-profit prison industry. Scratching out an existance in the new ghost towns of michigan and upstate new york and everywhere else where industry once thrived and has since dried up.

1980 started the digital age and served as the harbinger of the fall of the 'old guard', but in case you haven't noticed it's really started to accelerate lately.

Yeesh. I point out that poor people get pissed off and claim that Adams isn't the fucking second coming and of course, of COURSE the 'commie' comments got to come out to play. That stuff is SO 1950s. Can't you find a new refrain?

Let me give you a scenario currently playing out with an old friend of mine. She's "The Wife" in the following bit:

A guy working for "Foobaz, inc" making $17/hr gets downsized. He's worked at Foobaz for the last 12-13 years or so. He supported a family of a wife and two kids in a small house in suburban Ohio on that $17/hr, and aside from the pitifully crappy 401k (thanks enron!) they own a chunk of the house but only meagre 'rainy day' savings that long since dried up. They'd been living cheque to cheque for a while before this all happened.

Now he's on unemployment, getting maybe half of what he was making while on the job. The credit cards are getting run up with food and house bills because he can't find a new job doing what he was, which was essentially basic manufacturing. "I guess I need to retrain", he thinks to himself. His wife had no choice but to enter the job market, pulling down some $6.25/hr at the local Wal*mart since there's no call for her to do her old data-entry job (what she did as a teenager while living in a different country). Sadly, the eldest boy is still not quite old enough to look after his younger brother (he's a mature 9 years, but he's still only 9 years!) so there's a sitter available for when Dad's out pounding pavement trying to score a new job. The sitter isn't TOO expensive, but it still takes up a significant portion of the wife's after-tax income, to the point where she wonders what the fucking point is. She keeps hunting for some sort of secretarial work or maybe molly maid or something that would at least give her a buck or so boost, and maybe get some benefits... health insurance for the kids was lost with Foobaz, and they make too much to qualify for Medicare. With insurance rates for families ringing in at $600/month on the low end, it doesn't look like anyone's going to be going in for those dental checkups any time soon.

They're already starting to suffer due to CC payments from covering monthly bills. His unemployment is ticking. They've got about 30k available in the house, which he (or she) could probably leverage to get through a year of college and keep the family alive, at which point they're back at scratch in terms of assets. What job can he get to bring his family back up to old levels after that 1 year? He hasn't even been to university before... he started working right out of high school. It's been 15+ years since he's opened a book. Can he even do it?

Of course, if he can't, then obviously he DIDN'T WANT TO, right? :rolleyes:

She might have a better chance (she's a bit smarter than him), but her job is anything but relaxing, or pleasant, or flexible. It's also requiring a serious adjustment for him to play "Mr. Mom" while SHE'S out earning for the both of them that isn't fully realized yet, so she's still assuming a lot of the chores. While she's competent enough with a word processor, she doesn't really have any experience as an office assistant or anything. Plans to go to school while he worked were scuttled when the kids started coming, so really her only serious qualifacation for the last decade is 'domestic engineer'.

So if this average family can't turn around and make it all work, it's obviously their own lack of desire, hmm? I'm sure she'll be glad to hear its all their fault.

The fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc - "After this therefore because of this". Can you see no differences between the situation now and the situation as it was in, say, 1890? Than 1920?

This is all crystal ball gazing, but I have far less blind faith in some magical fairy dust being sprinkled around and suddenly everyone has a job and it's all hunky dory. There are several large elephants in the room: the extreme expense of education, burgeoning debt and trending-into-negatives saving rate of the population, rapid increase in foreign competition into previously 'safe' markets, among others. This trend is causing real problems for real people, not just some nameless discomfort for faceless individuals. Perhaps you should get out and actually talk to the people being downsized and listen to their stories rather than marching blithely on, oblivious to it all. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it might cure you of not giving a fuck if others suffer.

I have worked with Mike (Bluewire) on many occassions. He is one of the brightest people I know. He knows his shit. Listen to him!

Fuckin' outsourcing. They make us get our prices down to get some job

You whats funny, I raised my prices every year and got more and more work. Lots of people contacting me to fix the outsource shit they got.

When outsourcing came up in designing I was hm, but after a while I could only laugh about it.

Wow, that was random. I don't buy the statistic OR the living standard.

If overseas programmers make an equivilent to 100K+ in USA based off the cost of living in their countries then I dont see where that could real far off. True, living conditions in these countries are different...but I dont think for the upper class you can say its better or worse...just different. If any of you have stayed in a 4 star hotel in any of these countries you'll understand that perfectly. They're just as nice, but very different style.

I was guesstimating the %, true. But I would guess that those making six figures in the USA are in the top 10 percentile if not more. I can see where its easy to look outside the circle of friends...I hardly have any friends who make under 100k/yr ...but they happen to be doctors, successful money managers, and business owners for the most part. The majority of the country doesnt fall into that.

"Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out."

Thank you Doug...but you give me too much credit hehe

That's how outsourcing works out. That's why you are successful, Quashe. What makes me laugh are the new offshore guys who charge a ton of money (comparatively) without a track record. Start from the bottom and ramp up. That's the way it goes.