<story><title>Ask HN: Is freelance web development still a viable path in 2019?</title><text>With the advent of wix, squarespace, and other code free forms of website developement, it seems as if the demand for custom built sites are at an all time low.&lt;p&gt;The little demand left is shared among a seemingly never ending hord of aspiring freelance developers, many of whom are willing to work at prices far below that of what their skills had once demanded.&lt;p&gt;With a market such as this what place, if any, is there for new developers who wish to break into freelancing? Is there any hope at all for these developers? Or have the days of freelancing been put to an end by abstraction and oversaturation?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>CareyB</author><text>Not really.  Wix and GoDaddy clobbered it, and now there are others.  At one point I had over 30 sites requiring regular maintenance, and upgrades.  Plus a few I developed, installed on other servers, and did not maintain.  Now I’m down to about four.  These days there’s almost always someone in a small business’ office with the requisite skills to do basic upgrades, and small changes.  I get called when things go wrong, or there’s a major overhaul in the offing.  Many small businesses do quite well with a Facebook page, or some other self development tool.  The sites look amateurish, and derivative, but they get the job done.  All you want is the ‘Who, what, where, when, and why’, and standards are so low there’s no functional penalty for having a lame Web presence.  I find more clients hiring full time ‘social media’ specialists rather than me.  I have pondered becoming a ‘social media expert’, but the fact that I have worked building some of the early experiments taints me against the concept.&lt;p&gt;Almost all Web sites are similar these days, and there’s a value to designing the UI&amp;#x2F;UX in a way users expect.  I suggest that, for startups, and small businesses, there’s virtually no need for anything other than a basic Web presence.  With the rise of social media, the appropriate account(s) will solve that problem for most.&lt;p&gt;I worked through the wild west of this industry, and it was semi-fun, but I think we’ve moved on, things have settled down, or are settling down, and there’s a minimum sufficient requirement for a Web presence that’s pretty freakin’ minimal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mxuribe</author><text>100% THIS!&lt;p&gt;To your point about &amp;quot;becoming a social media expert&amp;quot;, I actually began lightly dabbling in this, and felt nauseous after some time...Allow me to describe:&lt;p&gt;You begin admirably trying to help a business (or individual) to gain legitimate views and insights from their audience...but hoping to grow to full, positive engagements, and so forth - not for merely having a social media presence, but rather, with the overarching goal of growing their business, or meeting some other business goal of theirs...and eventually, they begin to get addicted, and whether its a true value to their business goals or not, they begin chasing the dragon of growth. And, much like i can only imagine like drugs - they get hooked. Whatever ethical advice i would provide is ignored, and they only want advice on how to grow their audience like crazy (think: hockey stick growth numbers, etc.) including employing fake follow bot accounts, etc. Their &amp;quot;chase&amp;quot; for ever more audience continues on a darker route...wanting ever more clicks&amp;#x2F;likes&amp;#x2F;views&amp;#x2F;attention - even at the risk of their business&amp;#x27; main value proposition.  They begin outright ignoring your continuous protests.  You begin to feel sick - as if somehow you are the gun salesperson selling a gun to a person you are only now discovering is dangerous.  Your client keeps pushing you for more and more dark patterns to employ, and you continue to refuse...ultimately ending the business relationship.&lt;p&gt;Now...are all clients like what i noted above? No, i&amp;#x27;m sure there are good clients out there that don&amp;#x27;t go dark...But for me, I kept encountering the dark ones.  So, for what its worth, I would not go down the route of being a social media expert.  Good luck, and cheers!</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Is freelance web development still a viable path in 2019?</title><text>With the advent of wix, squarespace, and other code free forms of website developement, it seems as if the demand for custom built sites are at an all time low.&lt;p&gt;The little demand left is shared among a seemingly never ending hord of aspiring freelance developers, many of whom are willing to work at prices far below that of what their skills had once demanded.&lt;p&gt;With a market such as this what place, if any, is there for new developers who wish to break into freelancing? Is there any hope at all for these developers? Or have the days of freelancing been put to an end by abstraction and oversaturation?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>CareyB</author><text>Not really.  Wix and GoDaddy clobbered it, and now there are others.  At one point I had over 30 sites requiring regular maintenance, and upgrades.  Plus a few I developed, installed on other servers, and did not maintain.  Now I’m down to about four.  These days there’s almost always someone in a small business’ office with the requisite skills to do basic upgrades, and small changes.  I get called when things go wrong, or there’s a major overhaul in the offing.  Many small businesses do quite well with a Facebook page, or some other self development tool.  The sites look amateurish, and derivative, but they get the job done.  All you want is the ‘Who, what, where, when, and why’, and standards are so low there’s no functional penalty for having a lame Web presence.  I find more clients hiring full time ‘social media’ specialists rather than me.  I have pondered becoming a ‘social media expert’, but the fact that I have worked building some of the early experiments taints me against the concept.&lt;p&gt;Almost all Web sites are similar these days, and there’s a value to designing the UI&amp;#x2F;UX in a way users expect.  I suggest that, for startups, and small businesses, there’s virtually no need for anything other than a basic Web presence.  With the rise of social media, the appropriate account(s) will solve that problem for most.&lt;p&gt;I worked through the wild west of this industry, and it was semi-fun, but I think we’ve moved on, things have settled down, or are settling down, and there’s a minimum sufficient requirement for a Web presence that’s pretty freakin’ minimal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>elorant</author><text>Going down the social media expert path with a web development background can be very lucrative. 95% of the work done can be automated and the competition is primarily marketing guys who can&amp;#x27;t code shit. I&amp;#x27;ve been literally shocked when I realized what most shops charge to handle social media accounts for their clients considering the amount of work done, which basically is a few minutes per day.</text></comment>