It seems that a lot of people are starting to have problems with RAC. I’ll admit, I’ve never taken a project due to time constraints, but annoyingly, I still get invites on certain projects. At some point I’ll stop browsing through the work and close my account.
It seems there are 2 major issues with RAC:
15% Commissions: This is one reason, other than time constraints, that I haven’t taken a project. I’ve signed up for coding services in the past that you had to pay a subscription to and technically speaking, they where cheaper. If you have a “Pro” account, you could pay $100/mo for unlimited bids on projects and not pay any type of commission. If I took one project on RAC for $2,500 (I deal with fully custom CMS’ and DB’s), RAC would get $375… All for giving the ability to POST projects and allow BIDDERS to use the site. I know a developer making a decent living working full time on RAC projects. From what I can calculate, RAC is making close to $15,000 a year on his commission fees alone. (He sometimes works 16 hours a day in front of the computer pumping out projects.)
The other issue is the Arbitration System RAC uses. Arbitrators usually have to go through years of schooling. They can stand up in front of crowds and take charge. I know one of the only Qualified Army Arbitrators that works in Europe and this man has his ducks in a row. What does RAC require? Knowledge of 2 programming languages, ability to type and multi-task (you’ll be doing Arbitration and general Customer Service) and the ability to make decisions fast. Don’t believe me? Check out the Dice job posting for RAC - there is NOTHING about Law or training to be an arbitrator. Unfortunately, this seems to be a growing issue in IT. You can look over Dice and Monster for Arbitrators in the IT group and see that almost none require actual Arbitration Training.
There is another issue that bugs me with these websites as well. There is a difference between cheap labor and more expensive labor. There are so many people on RAC and other websites trying to save a buck its not funny. Your very own web designer may be renting a coder out on RAC - it happens all the time. I remember bidding on one project (In fact, the only project I bid on.) where I was outbid by 5 cents. The other guy used X.95 instead of a rounded out number like myself. In that 5 cents, this other coder said he would design the form the client wanted, but they needed to provide their own email delivery from the form. Me: I was going to give them everything they wanted. People just want to save a penny whenever they can.
I have a few problems with cheap labor. No, I’m not going to get into the border debate, but I’ll just leave it with the fact that there can be quality issues.
Its Not Just The Labor
With the advent of the Internet, people have found it easier and cheaper to get online to do business. On top of this, certain markets are springing up all over the place (pardon the irony of the pun created from my example). For instance, logging into RAC, I found this:
- Dating Website (Repost) Hi,We are 2 entrepreneurs looking to get into the online dating market and need a website designing. We have the basic specs and will have a detailed one within the next 2 days. Medium Business Project: $500(USD) and above. Bidding open
Max bid: $1,000.00.
You’re going to tell me that between the two of you, all you can do is scratch together $1,000 for a website thats going to make you millions? Seriously folks, the whole Online Dating revolution is spinning down. I’m going to just throw this out to say that there are enough of you polluting the Internet that no one takes it seriously anymore.
The quality of work brings the universe to a halt as well. Nearly half of the projects (php) I sampled where requests to copy other websites. People this is called Copyright Violation. This is the same as some sblog or MFA blog taking my RSS feeds and calling them their own (I actually use FingerPrinting to help with this now). Don’t even get me started on the Homework category they have on RAC.
Unfortunately, I don’t think RAC is going to get much better. Until their fees lower and the quality of both their staff and work increases, it will turn into another Dead eBay.
