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Fun with arbitrage

What would be an effective strategy for getting around the geographic arbitrage that is endemic on the internets these days?

How and where do I charge $20/hour when a sweat shop in Bangalore will charge $10/hour for shoddy work? Are there any freelance sites that aren’t buyers’ markets?

I already have a professional programming j.o.b. in real life, so this question is mostly academic.

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Answer #1

Problem is, you can’t…what you need to do, (realizing this) is one of two things:

Deep specialization & customer service…you can’t provide the same level of service overseas as you can face to face. And, you can’t find a deep specialist, generally, overseas…generalists are easy to come by, specialists harder. If it’s niche, enough, and there is demand, then it won’t matter the price for the companies that need it.
If you can’t beat ‘em…join ‘em. Eg, if the geographic arbitrage is hurting your business, or ability to freelance, you’re in a far better position to source, implement and offshore work than a non programmer…thus, lowering your own rates, developing an advantage over the other shops, etc.

The nice thing about #2 is that it doesn’t prevent you from also doing #1…when I grew up, I went overseas with my dad (1992 / 1993) and he was importing clothing because you could get things hand made that weren’t available in the US for even twice the price. So I learned early…and, the global market won’t unwind…thus, it’s an advantage, for you, over a lot of companies that have yet to leverage economic arbitrage across countries.