[learc83]

>As for your hourly rate I can tell you from experience the global market is making it very competitive so suck that up.

I haven't had much problem with this. I don't compete on price because I can't bid lower than someone who has a cost of living 10x less than mine.

One thing I've learned is that the higher your rates go, the less the global market matters. Few companies are willing to pay for $100+ an hour out of country contractors.

Even if you're not charging that much, you can always find companies who are just more comfortable with someone in country. Many companies want someone they can reasonably fly in if the need arises, or just someone who is subject to the same legal jurisdiction if things to completely wrong. IP theft is a huge problem in developing countries and legal remedies are very difficult when dealing with international disputes.

[karlkatzke]

To draw a parallel, this is true in the housing market in my city: If you're competing with people for a $300k house, you will have 20-30 competing offers all in the first day the house is on the market. If you are in the $425k and up market, which has tighter requirements for getting a loan, then you will only have a few competing offers and the house may be on the market for a week before an offer is accepted.

[coldtea]

>I haven't had much problem with this. I don't compete on price because I can't bid lower than someone who has a cost of living 10x less than mine.

The problem is that those 10x-less cost of living people can increasingly compete on quality too.

Without some sort of protection inside their own country, it's "yay" for businesses and "tough luck" for IT workers. The HB1 (or whatever) visa thing is part of that.

In the end, the situation is not good for those 10x cheaper people either, because it ensures they'll always stay 10x cheaper, as even if their country develops more, there will always be someone underdeveloped with 10x cheaper cost of living to bring their prices down too.

[learc83]

I agree that some labor protections are needed. However language barriers, cultural differences, and time zone gaps add enough of an overhead to communication that most companies willing to pay my rate won't hire foreign programmers just to save a bit of cash upfront.

Then you have the legal issues I mentioned. Contractors in other countries are for the most part outside the reach of US courts in the case of contract disputes.