Preserved Topic: gotta ask. Is the net "over"?

The layoffs keep mounting, and mounting. Go.com just went t*ts up, and the rumor is that Amazon will be letting 20% go too.

It seems every day there's another .com leaving the scene.

In my market, the ads on Monster have been halved in the last year. And the ads that are there want you to know Everything About Everything.

And the salaries are getting lower and lower.

FWIW- I 'm starting to get nervous and am considering bailing out before I get in too deep. It's sad, I really enjoy design and coding, but I'm afraid that when I finally DO get in somewhere, they'll go Chapter 11 on me.

[edit]
Keep in mind where I'm coming from:

I worked as a project manager in the environmental consulting industry for years and watched idiots cut prices and cut prices till the point they drove themselves out of business. Now you can't earn a living in that field at all.

Then, after several firms went south on me, I decided to get back into an area I loved. Car restoration. Bottom dropped outta that, too.

Soooo, go getter that I am, I decide I'll go into buisness buying and repairing insurance losses. Guess What? 6 months later it's outlawed where I live.

And I see it happening again. Yet, so many seem to not notice? Maybe I'm wrong here?

[/edit]

Anyone else beginning to sense the danger looming?


[This message has been edited by heddaLettis (edited 01-30-2001).]

Nah,

The web is going to be okay. I think we are just going to see it come back to reality. This medium is still way in it's infancy.

Sure things are getting tighter and the weak are starting to fail but it's to be expected. As wide spread as the medium is it still couldn't support the number of sites each trying to fill the same niche in the market.

Go' s dissappearence is hardly suprising. They were not the first or the best portal out there.

As to the job market, that's a different story. I have to say I live and work in the Silicon Valley and everyday I see people that basically suck doing a job for which theya re not very suited. I think a lot of these hacks are going to be weeded out and the cream will start to rise. There are still plenty of positions availible (especially in the engineering end) Just make sure you can do a little bit of everything and you will find your place.

piece


Walking the Earth like Kane

Sure companies are going down but something's gonna happen and back up it goes...life's a sine wave, seems the internet and the companies behind it are riding that wave...

wow that was a lame metaphor...ughhh...i disgust myself sometimes...i believe this is numba 400...

[edit]cool, it was...[/edit]



www.netmosis.com - we're on the leading edge of a false reality...

[This message has been edited by netmosis (edited 01-30-2001).]

hedda - the net aint dying, its changing.
stay on top of the changes, and you'll be riding the wave... keep posting the same old crap with a gazillion banners around it, and its over. http://www.gurusnetwork.com/ravings/information_commodity.html
kinda on this subject.... the way things change.
there were a few old threads discussing this, and the way the net may evolve to one where the sites charge the users for their quality information. moving net profits more towards the tangible.
...no matter what happens though, i reckon that if you stick in a lower liability position where you design and/or code, well, i reckon there's many a job waiting for you. start managing an online business, and you can expect a lot of grey hairs, and no guarantee that you'll come out on top. i think that it's quite a simple concept - no matter what happens, no matter what the sites end up achieving, people still want them pretty looking, and people still want them funtional. and that's where i will come in. so, even if they go belly up, ive taken my pay before the darn site has even been launched for a week.

once we get past the .com greed factor explosion....everything should return to a somewhat normal state....it's reminiscent of the junk bond era and the day trading frenzies

I don't think that the net is going anywhere, definitly not. It is still in its infancy really and just needs to be defined, which is what you see now. The only reason most of the .com's going down received the money to get started is because of the "ipo frenzy". Millionaires being made everyday. Almost any geek who had a buisness model that "seemed" like it would hold together for a while would be able to draw some investors. Everyone who invested in these companies expected the same result, some made it but most did not. Then there are the good companies who just got hammered from the market's status in the past few months, they will pick up the pieces and become even better. In my opinion, everything will pick up again soon. So long as you keep up with the changes, you will have no problem staying in the market...

Yep, looks like mostly a positive outlook here, eh? I gotta agree with the optimism shared here, I think the net, and our net jobs, will be OK. What we *will* see happen is the entry into this field will be tougher, those folks who got high paying jobs in the consulting biz yet still don't know anything, they will be cut out of the loop, their jobs will be the first ones cut. If you've got a knack, and a well-rounded set of skills, there will always be jobs for you.

One thing I'm expecting to see more of is IT companies that aren't shooting for the multi-millions, but are instead shooting for making a living, there's room for this kind of entrepeneur, and there *is* money to be made. What I expect to see less of is e-commerce businesses with 800 employees, doing what? (How many people does it take to run an e-commerce outfit? 3? 5?) Sanity will return, greed will be lowered, but people will still get good things out of this worldwide net, trust me.

I am *so* dissapointed in myself for not creating a well funded IPO startup 3 years ago and then cashing out before the bust! Stupid, stupid doc, heh. Now I'm actually bucking the odds, starting a new internet company in this year, am I crazy? Not really, there's still a good, profitable niche for startups, and that is in the back-end B2B services. Big "brick and mortar" traditional comanies, who know how to make money, they are entering the arena, and they will spend nearly as much money as their .com counterparst, they'll just spend it more wisely. The trick, IMHO, to creating a successful company is to create services that they will buy. Funny, if I had started this company 2 years ago I'd probably have ended up with 50 people working here and a few millions in the bank. Now, we have only 3 of us, and considerably *less* than that in $$$! The funniest bit is that we're probably on a better track to be a success than with the first scenario.

So! I've not lost hope, have you? Please don't panic yet, it's just a storm, batten down the hatches, get the cat inside, and postpone that Ferrari until next year, thre's still some tough times ahead. If we just lower our expectations down to a reasonable level we will survive this crisis and our skills will be just as valuable as they ever were. People make this internet "thing" go, people like us.

Your pal, -doc-

*looking around*

we're all going to die.

there, you fucking optimists. put that in your pipe and smoke it. i can't believe that anyone could consider that the net is going south. there is simply no evidence. sure, the dow took a bit of a dive, but does that mean that our economy is going south? doomsdaysayers, all of you.

I have to agree that the net is not going away. Here is a bit of advise, watch the news, watch the stock market channels in your area, and watch it like you are a hick from Mississippi sitting in your trailer.

I will have to say that our jobs are secure until you see the IBM commercial that says "Small Business Solutions." When IBM and MicroSoft, and the other big boys step down from larger corperations to the sole propriater ships then we may be in a little bit of trouble, as free lancers.

(note: you may digress that they already offer these services, but in my own oppionion their idea of small business is one that only have 30 people in upper management compared to the large corporations with hundreds or thousands, and who have at least a million dollars allocated for their web marketting schemes.)

If the big boys can come down into the small business world, then I will have to say we could be in trouble. Because I know that the hick from Mississippi will much sooner get his 'solution' from IBM who spent twenty-million on televised arvirtisment, than you or me, whos business travel by word of mouth.

I figure I will have 1 to 3 years left doing web design after the Large Corporations come into the small business world. They do however tend to be slow on the new trends. So as web TV developes and the next media form comes in, we will all be right there and prepared for it, and be able to maintain our businesses in its new form.

So, no in answering the above question, the web/internet/commerce will not simply disappear. This is much to powerful a medium for that. Wait till affordable microwave communication hits the market, watch the potensial expload (as I am told there are not bandwidth limits). The web will survive.

Now here is what I fear. WYSIWYG, I fear this in the form that anything you see in your head you can have put down in seconds. That is scary, the technology for developement tools is growing very fast. Someone who has no idea about the difference between server side and client side, can now sit down, have front page link to the server, and design their web pages. Well shit, if any joe can do that, where does that leave me. When they can then link from frontpage to access and point and click their way through database creation on management, what is left for us? Especially when their software package comes at $59.95.

In closing it is not realistic to expect a million dollar a year salary for doing what you do. But you can expect a salary of around a hundred thousand a year. Do not sell yourself short. Earn on what you are worth, and for the service you are providing. Don't get pulled into the downword spiral of doing work for less, and under cutting your own price. Stand firm!

On a note about IBM:

Someone I sort of know had an idea for a net biz. It was to be a "medical" site, but all it really was was a glorified message/chat site.

I got my sweaty hands on their prospectus (I'm a VERY active investor) and was shocked to see that they agreed to pay IBM
<DOCTOR EVIL VOICE>
One Million Dollars
</DOCTOR EVIL VOICE>
to develop the site.

Having said that, I'm still more than a little nervous. And that WYSIWYG stuff made me wanna puke, too.

[This message has been edited by heddaLettis (edited 01-30-2001).]

Added to this...
I've just read this .

WYSIWYG? What the hell?

Are you saying that Chumba Wumba is going to be the downfall of web programmers?

They had one hit single, get over it fuckers.

heddaLettis, there is one simple reason that there are many, many dot.com sites biting it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

THEY ALL HAD CRAPPY BUSINESS MODELS!

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The industry standard seems to have been, "offer our stuff for free, charge for useless advertising, and bilk moronic venture capitalists for billions." This actually isn't too shabby a business model if there were an unlimited supply of moronic venture capitalists or if the moronic venture capitalists were incapable of catching on to the fact that the dot.com businesses weren't making any money.

There will always be an internet, but in order for people to make money at it, they have to come up with a business model that will generate that money. Venture Capital is great, but everyone is finding out that it can't be their only revenue. Advertising is quickly disappearing. In a few years, people will stop buying it completely. So, the only way to make money is to sell something whether goods, services, or information.

I don't think anybody online is ready to pay subscriptions or a Pay-per-view situation to view a site. For every site charging for their content there are a dozen offering it for free. People who do it for fun or hobby. The only way this model will work is if the entire internet became Pay-per-view and the only other option were to not go online. A complete change in infrastructure. Many businesses in the next few years are going to try to charge for their content and are going to be met with a lot of resistance and go out of business. This business model will only work on the same type of people who call 1-900 numbers.

As long as sites are selling goods or services that people want, they will stay in business.

I think an internet of people sharing their interests and connecting with other people without all of the marketing and merchandising would be great. People publishing information just because they want to and expecting nothing else in return are the only sites I like using.

I'm reminded of an old saying:

"Looks like 5 pounds of sh*t in a two pound bag."

I'd imagine that most of us here who are actually charging for their services are doing so for Small Businesses. Most of these sites are informational in nature, they do not directly sell a product on line.

If the net were to go to a pay-per-view format, the majority of these businesses would not even bother to (pay to) develop websites. Why develop a site that: a) doesn't sell anything, and b) people have to pay to see?

If that's the case, there will be A LOT of designers/developers looking for an ever smaller amount of work. And, as we all know, if the demand goes down, and the labor pool goes Up, what happens to prices???

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I originated this post by noting that Go.com has called it quits. Doesn't it stand to reason that many many businesses will rethink their net initiative when they realize that a corporation with HUGE resources like Disney can't find profitability on the net?

For now, I'll keep plugging along, but I'll be keeping a close eye on the classified, too.

Doc, you echo my sentiments almost exactly, and haveing come out of a consulting firm (though a smaller one, about 150 employees) you nailed that as well. And my old firm laid off 30 people about a year ago. Smaller companies that can do the same projects without 26 consultants have the chance to do well.

I guess I'm nuts too BTWl, we'll be officially launching our new design firm (a merger of Caffeinated with something else) in the next couple weeks

Chris

I actually did some research on this one, if you're a consulting firm, and you start to grow, what happens is that you need bigger and bigger jobs in order for them to be profitable. The logic goes like this: An average producer-type person, programmer/designer/html jockey, etc... has a fixed amoutn of time between jobs, there's the recharge time, reading email, getting on track for the next one. How do you get 70%+ billable time? You do jobs that keep you all going for weeks on end, with 40hrs/week billable. Then you wind down, read email, do research, time reports, and move on. If you average job is an hour long and you work for a consultancy firm, you'll spend way more time *between* jobs than actually billing jobs! Why did I bring this up? I still belive the small contractor will have jobs to do, IBM will not steal these small (less than a $million) jobs, THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO! Likewise, I can't get too worried about WYSIWYG editors, people will use them, their sites will be ugly, and they'll hire someone like you or I do re-design them. No worry.

I'm still thinking we're going to be migrating towards a pay-per-view model of some sort on the net, though. We're already being trained, with wireless and WAP you pay for every SMS message and email recieved, it just gets added to your phone bill. One way it might evolve is into conglomerates, sort of like some of the adult sites have done, pay one fee, visit any of these 100+ sites in a loosely aligned network, with the subscription fees distributed amongst the members based on traffic. I'm abolustely *convinced*, this will happen sometime down the line, and it won't be that you'll have to pay more than you pay now, iaccess to the net gets cheaper and cheaper, as time goes by it will be considered like any other utility, and what we'll pay for is the quality of the info that comes across to us. My greatest fear is that the people who *do* create good stuff will get tired of doing it all for free, all the time, forever, it's too much to ask.

Ah! I'm on a familiar rant, I'll stop now, and go look at that other posts, heh.

Your pal, -doc-

I think that you miss the point of micro payments.

Currently you purchase a novel from Borders Books $6.00 for a paper back, and $30.00 for a hard bound. Would you be willing to pay a fee of $1.00 for this book in an online format. Or better yet, how about $0.25 for a megabit of content.

You are saving at least 6 times what you are paying now, and the person who is doing the work, is actually getting paid.

People who want you to visit their site and are providing you a service will not be the ones who charge you. The small business sites, some of them may not sell a product online, but they are still telling you about their product. This is advirtising for themselves, you do not charge people to see your advirtisments.

On the other hand, a site like hotmail, they could charge a fee of $2.00 per year for each account, and I am sure that they would be making more than they currently make from advirtising.

Goto.com is an excellent example of a good business model. Charge the people who list their site, and promote competition. You do not charge the user, but the people who want you to find their site. Now the people listed could offer a servise in which they would in turn generate revenue, or they could exist as simple advirtisers, or they could be content based sites that charge for access to the content.

I hear people asking the question "where do I get free hosting", if these people do not want to pay for hosting then why do they think that others would. It costs money to run a site. The smallest i have seen is 5 dollars per month, plus setup, not including the site design, and the domain name. And if the site gets popular and y ou use a lot of bandwidth your cost goes way up. People can not afford to offer these services for free.

My roomate runs a site, funnywebsite.com where he is paying $60 per month for hosting, and is again hitting bandwidth issues. Where he will have to upgrade, to a dedicated where they charge $500 per month. The costs are very hight. People can not afford to pay these costs out of the goodness of their hearts. They need to make some money back. If you have 10,000 visiters a day, a charge of $.01 per visiter would be an easy thing. They pay you a penny and you make some money back. Thirty cents for a month of good content. Well i don't think you can get a better deal anywhere else.

I'm liking my own personal business model of freelancer. I also have glassblowing skills to fall back on if for some odd reason I can't find any web work for a while, plus I am building up savings that could weather quite a storm.

The danger in today's economy is volatility in nearly every sector. No one knows what new technology is going to come out and flip everything on it's head. Building a large company (or even basing your career on one job) is always going to be risky because markets change, and develop specific skill sets for one employer may make you obsolete.

By freelancing, and doing a wide variety of web/graphic/programming development you become so flexible that you will always be in demand. Nothing is for certain in todays economy, but the surest thing I can think of is that technology will keep moving forward and pushing the envelope. If you stay abreast of new information technology, and are enough of a geek to actually enjoy it, then the future looks very bright indeed.

Of course, you may also want to join the local militia group in the case of total world economic collapse, then you have all bases covered.

Warmage, I have read many of your posts and have respect for you, not only because you attend (attended?) Stonybrook University, (As did I for someone else under His name..heh) but you seem very well informed.

That said:

E-Books will go down faster than Monica in the Oral Office.

I'm a big reader, have been all my life, and there's SOOO much more to reading than staring at pixels on a screen. Can you imagine curling up by the fire....all ready to read.....your laptop? NO WAY !!!

Books are here to stay. I couldn't imagine reading a classic without the feel of the pages, the smell of an old edition, etc...

About "payments".

In the early days, there were fees for Everything on the net. Remember AOL's pay per minute plan? Didn't work then, why will it work in the future?

We're web designers/developers/geeks.
But yet, not a week goes by without someone is asking about "free" this or that.

HEY!!! We're the guys (and gals, Shiiiz) DOING this stuff, and WE want it free!!!

Times like this, I think of my ole Mom. 66 years old and loves the net. I'll tell you this: For her, and many like her I'm sure, the 'net would turn into an e-mail ONLY service if she EVER had to pay more than the standard ISP price.

Here's another Q:

Does anyone here think that this forum would be even half what it is if it was pay-per-view ??????

If there's any typo's I'm sorry. Hora Feliz has begun, and I'm going in for surgery tomorrow !



O.K. how's this?
Adobe (ADBE) is getting SLAMMED in after market trade------due to----Weakness....down 20% or so.

Amazon [AMZN] Guess what ? (read my orig. post) just DID announce 15% staff cuts.


P.S.

fuckedcompany.com

deny this stuff. anybody. anybody. bueller, puh-leez?




[This message has been edited by heddaLettis (edited 01-31-2001).]