I heard about the repl.it bounties idea a while ago. I decided to check it out. The basic idea is you do programming tasks in exchange for “bounties” which are paid in some kind of repl.it token, which you can use to rent virtual servers or convert to cash.
I was shocked first by how bad the offers are and second how every post has multiple applications.
For example, one project I looked at involved setting up a custom analytics dashboard connecting to some random software, supporting multiple users, a few paragraphs of requirements - the pay was the equivalent of 90 USD. I guess the move is to hope that there is some out of the box software you could setup and configure for them in a few hours - but, realistically, this seems like days of work and multiple meetings to iron out requirements. For 90 dollars? This project already had many applications.
Another example was a bounty for a twitter bot that posted content from json. Seems straightforward enough. The offer was 4.50 USD. 3 people had already applied!
I could almost see the twitter bot making sense - assuming nothing about the new twitter/X has broken tweepy, then posting from a json file is trivial and should only take a few minutes. But, of course, there is all the overhead of applying for the job, interviewing, I guess, to get it - how else could they pick from one of many applicants. Ironing out the details and probably a little back and forth to demonstrate you’re done. The hourly wage here seems below 1 dollar.
I’m curious if anyone has tried doing repl.it bounties or has insight into how well this system does or doesn’t work.
Seems like a way for people to exploit developers from non-US countries for “prototypes” and hours of labor without paying much of anything at all. They offer these bounties in hopes that people apply for the exposure and learning, or from somewhere that the USD carries a lot of weight in the applicant’s native currency. Likely not aimed at professional developers from a superpower country looking to make money from odd jobs.
I suppose that must be what’s happening. I wonder about how good the output is from these jobs. I’m almost curious enough to post something there myself just to see what the other side is like.
Same type of thing as fiverr etc. Just stay away.
It’s a shame - cause it seems like it could be a neat system. Plus, I would like a way to reduce the cost of all my virtual machines.
Tell me more about your virtual machines.
Not too much to tell really. I run a couple of hobby websites that get 10’s to 100’s of visitors per month. I have an unnecessary postgres server that keeps a bunch of datasets I’ve built up over the years for the rare instances where I want to query. I have a couple VMs that just run my web scraping scripts.
In general - they are easier for me to rent and setup than teardown!
When I learned about repl.it bounties my fantasy was something like “Do programming problems get VM credits” and it seemed ideal - but underwhelming in reality.
I would like a way to reduce the cost of all my virtual machines.
Buy a bunch of ebay thinclients and a switch?
