Are you an independent web-developer?

[mikey_w]

It was discouraging to hear in another thread…

@oddz

4.) Perhaps but I think a majority of “freelancers” are inexperienced bottom feeders hardly making any money. The notion these days seems to be freelancing is the alternative to not being able to get a real job. Which is completely the wrong mentality but that is the way it is considering the abundance of cheap jobs out there. I see posts day in and day out on this very forum that prove this very reality. Basic questions which someone offering professional services should know and if they don’t certainly are not qualified to be running their own business. People don’t think of freelancing as a business anymore which is the problem.

And…

@oddz

My advice is that if you’re not a designer don’t try to be one. When it comes to freelancing you’re fighting a loosing battle and here is why. The freelance market is riddled with low paying jobs for creating simple, one off-sites which can be made by a designer using something like Wordpress. That is the wrong market to be targeting if you’re a programmer. The real market is in full time or contract jobs maintaining existing websites that run on complex CMS platforms which require continuous change to meet new business needs. That is not something a designer or twelve year old with a little HTML and CSS knowledge can do. There is a lot of work to be had in maintaining software. Especially, maintaining systems built on open source platforms that require constant changes to meet new demands.

Part of me says @Oddz is right on. And yet the entrepreneur in me says, “There’s gold in dem dair hills!!”