Ask HN Spreadsheet Contractors: How do you feel about being undercut?

[sperry]

I've been looking through the contractors spreadsheet and I notice that there are many people with similar skills with large discrepancies in rates. How do those on the West Coast, for example, feel about seeing others from the Midwest, South or another country charging a fraction of what you do?<p>I know it's known that developers from the West Coast are generally more expensive than other places in the country (and, of course, throughout the world) but, it seems more stark when scrolling through the spreadsheet.

[noonespecial]

I'm actually half inclined to pay more for the West Coaster. Why? He's got better friends.

Sure its an intangible, and I might indeed be crazy (or have a bad case of selction bias from previous contacts) but I imagine a guy in an office in Palo Alto swirling around in his aeron and asking the guy behind him about how to X and getting an answer in 30 seconds. I imagine the mid-westerner embarking on a 20 minute google session to find out the same. They both had equal skill when they started, but the mid-westerner ended up costing more at a lower rate.

[iamdave]

A lot of that has to do with cost of living, and cost of living is quite variable with geographic location. For example a developer in my state, SC can easily break even on his time/effort with lower rates than a developer in New York or LA.

I assume that developers in larger cities understand that developers in towns no one has ever heard of have lower rates.