[consulting] A chuckle

[Antonio P. P. Almeida]

On 7 Ago 2010 10h36 WEST, kristof at pronovix.com wrote:

> The wild running beast that is the Drupal market doesn't need
> regulation, just brace, be aware, grasp opportunities as they come
> and enjoy the ride. If you could regulate it, it would die.

Yes. Regulation always brings more problems than those that is
purporting to solve. It always end up with the big corporations being
in bed with the regulators and trying hard (and achieving) keeping the
small upstarts at bay. Cf. television vs. the web.

For an informative view on regulation, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
and there's also the Misesian view that regulation ultimately leads to
unfreedom by compounding on an neverending flow of new rules to solve
the problems that the previous rules introduced.

Let's suppose we introduced some regulation, then the big shops would
end up, inevitably moving the rules as to favor them at the expense of
the small upstarts. It's just the nature of power and institutions,
it's the direction incentives point to.

> Service markets are not as liquid as we often think, there is too
> much meta-communication that is lost through mail and customers like
> seeing the people that build their sites. They often don't know the
> channels how to find the good low cost producers any way (if there
> are such channels).
>
> I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Europe all
> except multinationals want somebody who lives somewhere maximum 100
> km away to do their sites, even if you speak the same language.

Indeed. There's a google group drupal-portugal, and there are some
people posting stuff like "we want a freelancer to do some cheap stuff
for us", invariably there's always someone that answers, even people
from Pakistan. Of course for me that says that they're aiming for low
end markets and providing a bad service. If you want a well done site
and think that you can get it cheap, you're in for a big
surprise. You'll end up with a mess that will ruin your image as a
business. I'm working on a site that is somewhat complex, I inherited
it from someone who thought it understood Drupal. The result being
that I spent most of the first time in the project undoing all the
wrong things. The client is paying, be it in actual %«$, be it in
opportunity cost. By now the site could have been done. But alas it
isn't because they failed to screen for someone who has some
understanding of Drupal. There's no free lunches.

> So the doom scenario will not materialize.

Strangely enough I was talking with someone that works at CapGemini
this week and I was telling him that the web is much more difficult to
outsource than SAP & boring CRM related stuff. The web is an open
free market of ideas and technologies. It's a moving target. Would you
want to be on the phone to Mumbai when your site is being attacked
with the latest CSRF exploit or with a DOS attack like slowloris? Not
likely. You want someone that speak your language and *owns* their
work. 

The web and Drupal are at odds with the 20th century way of doing
business. We can see that in action in the case of whitehouse.gov. The
usual beltway bandits belonging to the military-industrial complex had
to reach out to startups like Acquia and other drupal shops. Why would
such mammoths do so if not for the fact that their culture is
antinomic to the web and truly free markets? 


> The only way we can stay in the win is to keep on pushing the
> limits, specializing and innovating every day. Improving our tools
> and becoming more efficient all the time. The moment you stand still
> you've lost.

You can't beat that. I agree 101%.

--- appa

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