Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A day with the geeks

What a strange, fascinating, educational and revealing day! Decided to make the screenwriting course free, access at my archive online. Thought a little app to get there would be nice -- not necessary certainly, but convenient, cool, good publicity. I couldn't figure out how to make one myself, though. Another ad on C list. Wow. Many, many responses, from India, Russia, US, roughly in that order. Estimates from Americans, $1000-2000. Ridiculous! What I want is so SIMPLE, I couldn't believe there wasn't a template somewhere to do it. Est from others, $500-1000.

Then I get the strangest email. What exactly do you want? I tell him. He says, I can do it in 5 minutes for $20.  Not 2 grand but TWENTY DOLLARS! Come on, what if I don't like it? Then don't pay me. OK, I'll bite. 5 mins later .. and it is almost perfect! It is so cool! So now I'm ordering a few frills, and this guy is a whiz. Ends up he's unemployed geek, former actor, in Estacada just down the road. Why are people asking 2 grand? I ask him. Because people will pay it, he says. What I wanted is indeed like a template, "it's just a wrapper" is how he put it. I mean, in five minutes, it was 90% perfect. Absolutely amazing.

They charge because people will pay it. They don't know any better.

BUYER BEWARE!

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