I agree. However, you will be passed over by most project posters for one of two reasons:
1) They aren't serious, and are posting the project to get a sense of how much it may cost them to develop an idea.
or 2) They don't care or are ignorant of quality issues when choosing a $10/hr bid.
As developers, we scoff at badly written code - it offends us. But as a business person, especially the cheap ones, as long as it works and accomplishes the goal, you're happy.
You should ask yourself if that's who you want to work for. You won't capture every dollar posted using the method above, but it will filter out the non-serious and non-quality minded project owners.
This is so true. Taking the second point first ... I keep thinking that -eventually- the market will find it's equilibrium with regards to price/quality for serious projects. Budding entrepreneurs get on these sites, post something, and get screwed by one of these $5/hr people (often and likely, not every time I admit). You would think that they learn by their mistake and come back the second time with different expectations in price and quality. However, there must be an endless supply of budding "entrepreneurs" as I have not seen any leveling off yet.
I use oDesk and Elance. I have looked at, yes many, other sites but the signal to noise ration is just so low and there are only so many hours in the day. I have had much more success finding serious projects on oDesk more so than Elance. I'm curious what others have experienced. And jwwest, you are absolutely right. There are many projects posted that clearly are not intended to proceed. You can't always tell from the post alone. But after some experience, you can certainly tell from the pattern of how a post ages (in conjunction with how it is written).
1) They aren't serious, and are posting the project to get a sense of how much it may cost them to develop an idea.
or 2) They don't care or are ignorant of quality issues when choosing a $10/hr bid.
As developers, we scoff at badly written code - it offends us. But as a business person, especially the cheap ones, as long as it works and accomplishes the goal, you're happy.
You should ask yourself if that's who you want to work for. You won't capture every dollar posted using the method above, but it will filter out the non-serious and non-quality minded project owners.