How can I make money online in India?

E-commerce in India is growing at a rapid pace. The future is bright especially after the launch of Digital India programme. India is on its way to become one of the largest markets in the world.

Coming months are more exciting as Alibaba and Rakuten, leading international e-commerce giants are launching in India.

There are going to be huge opportunities for online sellers. KPMG report says that Indian e-commerce market will be worth $100 billion by 2020.

If you haven’t thought of selling online yet, now is the perfect time to launch your business. Marketplaces and e-commerce SAAS platforms have made it easier for anyone to start selling online without any technical knowledge. All you need is a unique product idea(s) and a strong will to succeed.

In order to earn money online and to have a passive income by your side, you dont just need a computer with an internet connection, but a proper list of reliable and trustworthy resources and sites.

Like you all, I also had start earning my online passive income from scratch. I had no idea where I should start from or which site should join in order to get results that I wanted (very badly). During my journey, I had come across many ups and downs, had become victim of many scam sites and even earned thousands of dollars (thanks to my reliable resources and sites)

Moreover, I had gained a lot of experience and knowledge about the reliable and proper way of earning cash online and having a consistent online passive income by your side. I reveal my top 5 methods on my website.

Online Translator Job provide opportunity to those who are actually good in two or more different international language. There is a website Translatorsbase.com where you can find translator work.

2 Data Entry Job  Most common type of data entry job to make money online now a days is solving captcha. You have noticed on many sites when you signup you need to enter captcha. Captcha is small image on which few words or number are mentioned. You need to read captcha carefully. For 1000 captcha you can get $1 or $2

3 Freelancer Job There are site like Freelancer.com or Upwork.com where you can find lot of work but the problem is these kind of jobs required professional who are master in their respective field. For Example You can find a work of new website design on these sites but to get this work you have to bid for it and person who is best suitable for it and get ready to work on lowest bid usually get this job.

4 Buying and selling domain Buying and selling domain is also good way of making money. For example www.indianincome.com is domain name and I own it now but later on if any good company come with name IndianIncome then definitely they will try to use domain name as their company name. In that case they may contact me for this domain name and can offer better money and may be I will sell this domain at higher price. So I can make money by buying domain at low price and selling at high price. 


5 Designing Theme required knowledge of webdesign, HTML, CSS, Jave Script, J Query.
If you have knowledge you can make money by designing themes for site creation platform such as Wordpress, blogger,joomla etc.


6 Selling photos online is also good way to make money now a days. Few sites that provide opportunity are
     Shutterstock.com
     123RF.com
     Dreamstime.com

7 Selling apps online If you know how to create mobile application for different platform like android, windows, IOS, blackberry you can easily earn money by creating application and then selling your application to different app store.


8 Youtube videos  There are people who are making money by simply uploading videos on youtube but it's not so easy as it look likes.Your video should be very popular and should have lot of view and comments and if you are able to do so you can make money from Youtube easily.

are you looking to earn money online? Have you come across the term affiliate marketing? Did you know Rs. 6000 can be earned by referring one customer to buy a webhosting plan of Dreamhost?

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing technique where a person recommend a product to a potential buyer and earns commission from the seller once the sales is done. Commission can range anywhere in between 1% to 100% with a value of $1 to $1000 depending on the product you choose to recommend.

How to become an affiliate

A person must register (free registration) in the affiliate marketplace to become an affiliate. He becomes eligible to promote products listed in the affiliate marketplace.

Affiliate Marketplace

You can find affiliate products in affiliate marketplace. Amazon is an affiliate marketplace. Amazon pay anywhere between 4% to 10% on average as commission. Some of the popular affiliate marketplaces are

• Clickbank
• Amazon, amazon India., etc
• CJ
• Shareasale
• Webhosting providers like bluehost, dreamhost, etc

Choosing Affiliate product

Choosing affiliate product is the most important step in affiliate marketing. It is not recommended to promote a product just because it pays you more commission. Reaching potential customer at low cost with a quality product is the ideal way to do affiliate marketing.

Ways to Promote Affiliate product

Affiliate websites provide unique link or unique coupon code for each product to each affiliate. The commission is paid to the affiliate once the sale is done through this unique coupon code or unique product link. The ways to promote the affiliate products are as follows

• Direct link or coupon sharing
• PPC Campaign (Pay per click)
• Social media profile
• Email marketing
• Forum discussion
• Product video review (Youtube)
• Promoting on your own website

To know more visit Affiliate Marketing Guide - Webcrafters.co

Hope this answer helps.

There are a lot of way there to earn money online in India.

1. Blogging:

You can create a blog of your own and monetize it for advertisements.  You have several options to monetize, for example, Google Adsense,  Infolinks, Chitika etc. These companies pay you for the ad and clicks  for the advertisements that you display on your blog or website.
You can create you blog using WordPress which is a suitable blogging platform.

2. Publish an e-book:

You are good at writing, publish your own e-book and sell it online.  For example, you can use services like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
In fact, amazon provides host of opportunities to make money online:
Selling Products, Selling Apps, Kindle Direct Publishing, Affiliate Marketing etc.

3. YouTube Videos:

Once you have a google adsense account in place, you can create your  own YouTube videos and monetize it with your google adsense account.  YouTube will show advertisements in the beginning of your video or it  can be inserted within the video. You will earn on the basis of the  views of the ad and clicks on it.

4. Affiliate Marketing:

If you own a website or a blog, you can join affiliate marketing  groups like Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Page on flipkart.com etc. Affiliate  marketing companies provide direct commission on sale.

5. Online Freelancing:

If you are good with some software/graphic knowledge, then you can  start freelancing with some site where you will earn on the basis of  project. You can visit Upwork, the world's largest online workplace, Get everything you need starting at $5, Hire Freelancers & Find Freelance Jobs Online, open an account there, submit your skills and  start working.

6. Become a online trainer:

The demand for tutors is high and growing. So, if you like helping  others learn, e-teaching could be the earning ticket for you. All you  need to become an online tutor is expertise in your subject and a few  spare hours per week. TutorVista, e-tutor, SmartThinking andOnline Tutoring, Homework Help and Test Prep in Math, Science, and English are some of the sites you can enroll with. If you gain a  good reputation as a coach, you could even conduct Webinars-lectures or  seminars transmitted over the Net. College and university students are  willing to pay to gain entry to a well-respected Webinar.

7. Sell your stuffs:

Ever since the idea of online auctions came into existence, the  online selling market has been on the rise. Many are interested, but  don’t know how to get started. There are still all kinds of ways to make  money by selling online, whether you’re selling what you already have  or buying and selling like a store. Before we get started, here are a  few general tips when selling anything online like Page on amazon.com ,
http://craigslist.com/, Electronics, Cars, Fashion, Collectibles, Coupons and More

8. Earn by completing online surveys:

You have some free time after your work. You can convert it to money  by participating on paid online surveys to earn money. There are some  free sites there, you can open one account on You Can Get Free Gift Cards For Shopping, Searching and Discovering What's Online at Swagbucks.com or Paid Online Surveys and complete  surveys on regular basis. You will be awarded with points there. At the  end you can redeem these points as gift cards on different online  stores.

9. Earn from your online purchase:

If you are purchasing stuffs regularly from online, them it is only  for you. You need to open one account on Discount Coupons & Extra Cashback on 500+ Sites -CashKaro  and anything you want to buy,, just log into Discount Coupons & Extra Cashback on 500+ Sites -CashKaro and go to the merchandiser through this. Discount Coupons & Extra Cashback on 500+ Sites -CashKaro will pay you some extra money on your  purchase. 

Most of the times people advise you that turns out to be a scam or multi level marketing scheme that doesn’t create any value to the system. I am going to tell you the most effective way. An online business that purely based upon technology and that creates a great value to the system.

Making money online in India or anywhere in the World is not tough. It is possible, however people don’t want to share a good opportunity when they themselves get a good income from it. I am going to tell you about “bitcoin cloud mining”. It is a scientific method and the most popular cryptocurrency in the World.

It is just like setting up a machine that prints currency notes. Sounds easy? Too good to be true?

Image Source: Google

There is a science involved behind it and it is purely technology that works as a money making machine, so don’t ignore it.

Bitcoin Cloud mining is a concept allowing you to earn Bitcoins instantly without hardware dependence and other offline issues.

See my answer: Asma Khan's answer to How you would earn 3 bitcoins a day? for a detailed understanding.

Have you tried joining an affiliate program?  They're relatively easy because you don't have to manage any inventory or provide an support, you just make the sale.  They're also often location independent so you can use them even if you're located in India.

Some affiliate programs pay better than others so make sure you join one with a decent pay out.  Business related products typically pay more because of the higher price point.  For example, ProfitPress is a B2b affiliate program that pays $100 per sale and you even can join if you're in India.  There are a lot of programs similar to this, just look around until you find one that works for you.

With affiliate programs you'll make more based on how much time you put in, but after a while they become passive income sources over time.  One of the better perks of affiliate marketing is that you'll really learn how to sell stuff, and that's a skill you can take anywhere...and that can take you anywhere.

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That's virtually impossible

That's virtually impossible.

That's virtually impossible to tell, because it varies wildly, depending on a lot of different factors. You could start off by doing some simple math, assuming a revenue of $2 per 1,000 views. What you need to know (and what you didn't include in your question) is the total number of views per month. Because your assumption of 300k visits doesn't tell anything about how long it takes to acquire those views. Even old videos continue to be watched and to earn revenue. But let's keep it simple and assume the guy gets 600k views per week (which is 2,4M views per month). That would mean a total revenue of slightly less than $5,000 a month. But there are more factors in play.

First of all, we must consider where they money actually comes from. YouTubers are paid from advertisements, which are sold on an auction base. The highest bidder gets the best spot for his ads. But of course, there are times of the year when advertisers are more interested in advertising. During the summer months, there aren't a lot of advertisers. During the holiday season, advertisers are falling over each other to get their ads out there. So all that highly influences the CPC (Cost Per Click) that a YouTuber gets. Basically, in december I get at least 3 times as much for the same amount of views than I get in July.

Secondly, most big YouTubers are partnered with networks, which take a share of the revenue. For big YouTubers, this may be 10% or 20% (for smaller YouTubers it's usually a bigger slice of the cake).

Finally, for a lot of YouTubers the advertisements are their smallest source of income. They also make money from sponsorships ("this video is brought to you by..."), selling merchandise, product placement (companies pay them to show products in their videos) and affiliate marketing (referred links to webshops). If you have a huge reach, that means you are very interesting to advertisers, who gladly pay you a little extra to get featured on your show.

So in the case you've presented, I think this YouTuber would earn at least $4,000 a month. But his total income from YouTube (including sponsor deals and external advertising) might just as well be a 5 figure number.

Well, that’s a very open-ended question, but I would try my best to answer it. 
Firstly, let’s debunk some of the popular myths about how people earn from YouTube.
Myth #1: More subscribers= More revenue
Reality: There’s absolutely no relation between subscribers and revenue. You can have 100K subscribers, and still make 1000$, and someone could have 10,000 subscribers and still make 1000$. 
Why?
I’ll explain it soon.
Myth #2: More views= More revenue
Reality: The number of views might be a good enough metric to decide how much a video is going to make, but it’s still not a solid metric to base your calculations.
Doesn’t make sense?
Well, allow me to explain.
 
YouTube Revenue Model Explained: 
 
YouTube does not pay on how many subscribers you have or how many people share your video. Instead, it pays you from the share it earns from showing ads on your video. 
 
The metric that you should actually consider is CPC. CPC (Cost Per Click): The amount Google makes every time an ad is displayed. Now, the tricky part is that CPC is not fixed. It keeps varying, and depends on many extrinsic factors like timing, content and affiliation.
 
For example, as Geoffrey Reemer mentioned in his answer, the CPC of ads increases during holiday times, and drops during a certain time of the year. 

Google has fabricated its YouTube revenue model as something like this:
 

• It takes 45% of revenue received from Google ads
• The rest 55% is given to the YouTube channel, which is then split between the YouTube partner and video creator.

So, the amount of $$$ that you’ll make depends not on the number of views or subscribers, but based on how astutely your partner places the ads, and how well they are received. 
 
According to fair estimates from a popular advertising blog, here’s how the stats roll out based on the type of ads:
 

• Pre-roll ads: $5/1000 views
• Banner ads: 0.80/1000 view

Assumptions: 
 

1. You have affiliated with a YouTube partner. As      a matter of fact, you do not need to partner with a network to start      earning. Read more about how you can apply,here.
2. Your YouTube channel has 1 million      subscribers, and your channel a conversion ratio of at least 40%, which      means at least 400K subscribers would watch your video.
3. Banner ads and pre-roll ads are normalized.

Total earnings= (Conversion Ratio * Number of Subscribers) * Ad-specific CPC
                        = ((40* 10,00,000)/100) * ((0.80+5)/2)/1000
                        = (40* 10,000) * 2.9/1000
                        = $1160
 
That’s just a rough estimate though, based on my above assumptions. You can earn a lot more by partnering with the right network and normalizing ads for maximum conversions.

It often doesn't really matter how many subscribers a YouTuber has, but more importantly how many views they have. That, combined with CPM (Cost per 1000 Impressions), which is how much advertisers pay to reach 1000 viewers, is a good estimate of how much money they make. 

The equation that calculates a Youtuber's earnings is: 

(Credits to ReelSeo)

So, in your example, if someone is making 2 videos a week with 300K views each, they get about 2.4 Million views per month. And if we take the average CPM, which is around $7.60, and put it all into the equation it turns out to be: 

                $7.60 x (2.4 Million views/1000)   =    $18,240/month

So a Youtube with 2.4 Million views per month makes about $218,880 annually!

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How much does a YouTuber with 1 million subscribers earn a year?

As an interesting case study, the New York Times did a profile on YouTuber Olga Kay, who stars in 5 channels that collectively attract ~1 million subscribers.  

The article is worth a read if you're interested, but here are the main takeaways related to earnings:

As a full-time YouTube content creator, she says she has earned $100,000 - $130,000 per year ($8.3k - 10.8k per month) for each of the last three years.

She posts at least 20 videos per week, and earns money through a combination ofadvertising, sponsorships, and merchandising (e.g. Olga Kay knee socks).

According to TubeMogul, a video ad-buying software company, the average CPM on pre-roll ads is $7.60 (down from $9.35 in 2012), but most YouTube video makers do not sell an ad on every view of a video.  According to Tubemogul spokesman, David Burch, "It varies a ton, but it wouldn't usually be more than half, and for many partners it is more like two out of every 10 views will have a video ad."

So, as far as the content creator is concerned, the real CPM is in the $1.50 - $4 range.

Content creators say YouTube also takes 45% of the ad revenue.

It varies quite a bit. Money can come from a few different places, including: add revenue from CPMs, product placement, and sponsored videos. 

For those who do not know CPM means: If a website publisher charges $2 CPM, that means an advertiser must pay $2 for every 1,000 impressions of its ad. The "M" in CPMrepresents the roman numeral for 1,000. CPM is the most common method for pricing web ads.

CPM rates themselves range dramatically, from as low as $0.60 to as high as $7.00 and up. For more details, see: How to make money from YouTube: Analytics reveal video site's richlist.

Lets assume the average CPM for a YouTuber with 1 million subscribers is around $4 dollars. YouTube takes a 45% cut and sometimes the YouTuber also has Multi Channel Network representing who also takes around 45%. So the You Tuber, who gets on average 600k+ views a week, will end up with around $1-3k a week from CPMs.

Ads don't play on all videos, so that is a factor to consider, but then also older videos can keep accumulating getting views / ads (like Quora answers).

Not all subscribers and views are created equally. Many factors contribute to the variation including:

• Age, sex and country of viewers / subscribers
• Genre of video
• Type and price of ads
• % of viewers who have ad block or just skip all ads
• Actual click rate
• Audience comments, shares, etc.
• % of views on desktop vs. mobile

How much money the YouTuber actually takes home will depend on many factors, including how expensive the videos are to make, and how attractive the content is to advertisers.

Yet, ads on views aren't the only way for popular YouTubers to earn money. Many YouTube influencers also sell merchandise, apps, books, music, affiliate promotions, brand deals, etc.

And unlike advertising CPMs, dollars made through product placement and product sponsorships aren't usually shared with YouTube, although many do split with their representing MCNs.

The range for branded deals varies quite a bit, according to You Tuber, Rosianna Halse Rojas, “Someone accepts $4,000 and others say $20,000."Yet while branded deals may help the bottom line, they also hurt the brand. Most viewers really don't like product placement, and will "unfollow" if a YouTuber gets too greedy with product placement.

There are a few YouTubers making millions a year. And a few of these YouTube Stars' Huge Earnings Will Make You Question All Your Life Choices. DisneyCollectorBR, is estimated to earn between $1.4 and $21.9 million each year. She unwraps toys, like Play Doh, and just talks about it! And she never even shows her face. Her production, and wardrobe costs must be pretty low. Full disclosure: my 2 year old daughter is addicted to these videos and I've watched hours of her videos. 

Yet, for every superstar like DisneyCollectorBR, there are others stuggling to make ends meet, and unable to support themselves on their YouTube dollars alone. For more on the sad economics of a few YouTubers with over 1 million subscribers,

I had the same question. I was jealous of everyone I kept hearing about making a million a year on YouTube. 

I wrote to quite a few well known YouTubers asking to interview them.

Finally, Mimi Ikonn responded. She makes in profits over 7 figures a year. And the more I found out about her business model (non-advertising) the better I liked it.

During the interview I took notes on each step. I think anyone can do these steps to make 7 figures a year.

First off, I think I should say I'm in love with Mimi Ikonn. Oh, and also her husband Alex Ikonn. Don't want to confuse anyone!

A few weeks ago I met Mimi Ikonn and Alex Ikonn. I was insanely curious about them and how they built up a multi-million dollar business using YouTube videos.

This is a simple post. How to make a million.

I am absolutely sure the same techniques that worked for Mimi and Alex can work for anyone. I had them lay it out step by step.

A) EMOTIONS

Mimi became obsessed with beauty and hair. She and Alex watched before and after videos of women who were getting hair extensions.

"They seemed much happier after getting extensions," Alex said. "Whenever there are strong emotions about something you know there is an opportunity."

So Mimi started making videos of herself discussing hair and beauty and hair products.

"I never thought I would get more than 1,000 views," Mimi said. "But I loved doing the videos. And I wanted to share my love for the topics with as many people as possible."

Now she has had a quarter of a BILLION views on her videos with 2.7 million subscribers.

B) HUB AND SPOKE

People ask: "How do I get traffic to my blog". Or "how do I get buyers of my book." or "How do I get people to follow me on Twitter."

A lot of it is about loneliness. We sit in our house writing blog posts and then hit Publish. We want family to love them. We want friends to love them. And then we want the world to love them.

I'm really just talking about myself. I know when people enjoy things I do, I feel as if I have a family. I'm happy. At least until the next post.

Mimi loved making the videos but needed traffic.

So they did the only two-step technique that gets traffic online for anything you want to do. Well, make it a three-step technique.

1) Love

Know more, love more, express more, bleed more, than anyone else. Was Mimi the only one doing videos on beauty and hair? No. But maybe she put more passion into it.

2) Spread the Love

Alex would take images and posts and links to her videos and spread them on Pinterest, Instagram, blogs, other sites and have them all point back to her YouTube channel.

I call this "the Hub and Spoke" approach. Youtube was the hub, with a dozen or so spokes reaching out to popular sites that all would link back to the hub.

3) Make more Love

No matter what you do - some will be good and some will be bad. Not every video or post is going to have views. So you do more.

When you do more, several things happen:

a. More people find you.

b. You rank higher on search

c. You improve

d. People who find you start clicking on your older videos so now they start to get more views.

The "Make More Love" technique always works.

Michelle Phan did 54 YouTube videos before she made a massive hit.

Hugh Howey had already ten novels before he published "Wool" which became a massive bestseller. Clayton Christiansen applied for NASA for 18 years in a row before they accepted him.

Make more love.

C) 1000 PEOPLE

Note she said she only thought she was going to get 1000 viewers. The number 1000 keeps coming up with people who have HUGE audiences.

Kevin Kelly wrote about this in a great post called "1000 True Fans". He writes about itKevin Kelly. He also talks about it on my podcast.

Tim Ferriss talks about how every one of his posts he makes sure he's going to deliver value to at least 1000 people.

Of course he delivers much more value than that. But 1000 seems to be the right number that people who know seem to focus on.

Keep focusing on delivering value for a 1000 and then they tell 2 friends and so on and next thing you know you have a quarter of a billion views, five bestsellers, movies being made about you, you go into space, your own makeup lines, and on and on and on, depending on what it is you love.

D) BUY LOW, SELL HIGH

Alex and Mimi noticed that many of the other beauty videos were talking about a specific brand of hair extensions for women. So they went to my favorite place in the world - the mall.

"We saw these products were priced at $500," Alex said. "So then we went on Ali Baba and saw the same products being sold for $100. We then went to the manufacturers and saw we could buy directly for $50. The exact same products that were being sold for $500."

They borrowed from mom. Borrowed their full amount off of their credit cards. And they placed an order. Then, I imagine (they did not tell me this) they prayed.

E) SOFT SELL

Mimi talks about many products on her videos. She expressed a radiant, confident personality and talks about everything she is wearing, what her habits are, what products she uses. She NEVER sells anything.

But underneath the video is just a link. Clip-in hair extensions by Luxy Hair.

The orders came in one at a time. Then 100 at a time. They sold out of their inventory, paid everyone back, and bought more.

In their very first year (2010) they had over a million in revenues. Ever since then they've had more than a million a year in profits. Never once using the words "buy this" anywhere.

F) QVC-A

The most successful people have a model for their success. I think that's why I enjoy Peter Thiel's "Zero to One" book so much. Or Peter Diamandis's "Bold". Or Marcus Lemonis's TV show "The Profit".

Each book has a different, but very very simple, model for how to achieve success or how to judge which companies are successful.

Mimi and Alex developed their own model, they stick with it, and have used this simple model to keep jumping from success to success.

Alex explained it to me:

Q - Quality

Everything they do is quality. The cameras they use for videos ("But not overdoing it, because this is YouTube and not television," said Mimi). The setting they use and how it fits their message.

The products, etc

V - Value

Mimi is not trying to sell anything in her videos. She explains what she does and how she does it. She does the research and believes in the products. Rather than asking, she is giving.

"When you give a billion dollars in value," Alex said, "you get a billion dollars or more back."

C - Consistency

I read a book about television once by TV mega-executive Grant Tinker. He was Mary Tyler Moore's husband, ran NBC for awhile, and then ran MTM productions producing such shows as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Bon Newhart", and a dozen other super hit TV shows.

I only remember one thing in the book.

He said, "whenever they changed the time or date of a show, then that show would die. If you moved a show from Tuesday at 8pm to Thursday at 8:30pm then you just lost your whole audience."

Mimi said, "if you are going to put out a video once a week, put it out once a week. Put it out the same day each week if you can. Don't do once a month. Don't do random. Your audience starts to anticipate and look forward to your shows and knows when to expect them."

A- Authenticity

Mimi only talks on the videos about what she believes in. There's no fluff. There's no pitch. She's exuberant and it shows on each video.

H) LESS

Mimi and Alex were working 80-100 hour weeks. They had the money in the bank. They had achieved their goals. They loved what they were doing but when you hit a lifelong goal you start to ask, "is that it?"

They got depressed.

Goals are a myth. Our ancestors for 200,000 years didn't have goals. Every day started from scratch: hunt, forage, eat, sex, sleep, wake up to a new day.

Then we were told to find our "goals". And now everyone asks, "I'm 17 years old and feel like I've accomplished nothing in life. What should I do?"

Learning to find happiness with less is true wealth. Claudia and I recently got rid of most of our belongings, for instance. Then we started cancelling most meetings that I had set up. Sometimes it was hard. I had agreed to an event and then I would cancel.

Ultimately we are the sum of our experiences and not the sum of our belongings. There is nothing wrong with making money but it is only one small part of living a life of comfort, of compassion, of calm.

Mimi and Alex started to focus more on the other things that were important in their lives. "And you know what happened?" Alex said. "The more we did that, the more money we made."
– – –
I really enjoyed talking to them. I am always curious how people made money through a channel like YouTube. Now I know and I think it can be replicated by anyone who is willing to do all of the above.

I'm afraid I don't have a face for YouTube. Or Instagram. And I'm not even sure I have a face for podcasting. But I think I love doing what I do.

And I like having the time to explore other interests and ideas.

And then sometimes I like doing nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with that also.

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That’s wrong | it’s broken | I don’t like it

That’s wrong | it’s broken | I don’t like it

I can’t stand this. These are all subjective terms; they don’t communicate actionable issues.

• I don’t know what, “wrong” means,
• nor do I know what “it” is if it’s broken,
• and if you don’t “like it” then… what do you want me to do about it?

Programmers need specifics, because we fix specifics. Try saying, “that’s the wrong font size”, “the form doesn’t submit when I click submit”, or “I don’t like the colors.”

“This should be easy”

relevant XKCDs have already been shared, I’ll just elaborate:

• The easier it is for you to do, the harder it is for a computer: speaking, listening, understanding humans, comparing images, recognizing voices. Were you able to do it at birth? Then grab a snickers, this algorithm’s going to take a while.
• “easy” compared to what? Throwing a tennis ball? Learning Mandarin? You don’t code, you don’t get to decide what’s easy in my profession.
• Do you always insult someone’s intelligence/profession? Do you go to the doctor and say, “this should be an easy triple bypass?”

One time I was asked to take color data pulled from a camera, put a circle on a web page, and make that circle’s color the dominant color that the person was wearing… but it had to be one of the company’s 6 branded colors. That’s right; I get any one color of 16,777,216, and I have to match it to one of 6. The company told me this was “easy”. I quoted 60 hours for the color matching, 10 hours for putting circles on a page.

“Can’t you just [obviously simple thing] ”

Nope. I can’t just [].

• It’s not me who does it; it’s the computer
• My job is telling the computer what to do
• Computers speak terrible English

But, this is because people foolishly think…

“Computers are so smart”

No.

No they aren’t. They’re incredibly dumb. Computers think in 1 and 0; they have a vocabulary of exactly two words. No one thinks this way. No one.

By comparison, the average 4 year old who still doesn’t have the good sense to pick his nose before he picks his butt knows 5,000 words. And 5,000 words is between 40 and 50 times the size of any programming language.

Mind you, we have programming languages for our programming languages. And when the language for the language is too hard, we make a language for that.

Computer scientists bend over backwards to make it easier for us to talk to a machine that won’t give a metamucil-assisted shit whether it were a paper weight or a flight control system.

Everything that a computer does right is because of a whole slew of brilliant scientists and programmers figured out the right way to communicate their instructions.

And everything that a computer does wrong is because it did exactly what those idiotic scientists and dumbass programmers told it to do.

Over 99% of the time, a “bug” is a bug because a programmer, somewhere, made a mistake. But…

“Computers can’t do that [weird thing]”

I once saw a Commodore 64 where[Math Processing Error]$7+3$was [Math Processing Error]$11$. It was the only machine amongst 20 that had the inclination to cockblock a 7 and a 3 summing their values the way the good Lord Jesus intended.

You can tell me all day long, “it [can’t, isn’t supposed to] do that.”

It did.

Don’t tell me what it can and can’t do. Tell it.

The life of a programmer isn’t as much arguing with a computer about what it can do, but accepting what it will do.

“Can you fix my…”

No. Take it to the geek squad.

“Would you take a look at…”

Nope.

“My printer is…”

Going to be set on fire if you ask me again.

I was just going to do a simple list, but then I got going.

“The Internet is down!” - Your wifi might be down, your connection to your upstream provider may be down, their connection to their upstream provider may be down, a large segment of the Internet could possibly be down (doubtful), but the Internet is never down, it cannot be it was designed to never be down.

“It crashed!” - Is it really so challenging to be precise? Ok leave precise alone, why do I have to pry the information out of you in order to help you. Shouldn’t you be doing everything possible to give me the information I need to help you? What crashed? When you say crashed what do you mean? The program closed, the computer blue screened or the computer was driving down the highway the wrong direction and hit an oncoming motorist head on. Crashed means a lot of things to different people it is a bit more specific to a developer, but the non-programmer seldom understands well enough to use it correctly. Just tell me what happened with as much detail as possible.

“Is it possible to . . .” - Pretty good chance, unless you are asking me to break the laws of physics, so what is your real question? Could you perhaps ask that instead (unless it is how long would it take see “How soon will it be done”)? Maybe try, “How hard would it be . . .” or “Would it be reasonable to . . .”.

“It’s broken now and I didn’t change anything” - If you didn’t change anything then how do you know it’s broken? The mere act of using a program changes something, though that doesn’t typically break the code, but you did change something. What really matters is that totally innocent game you installed because you were bored while I was working that you think I don’t need to know about, that you don’t want to tell me about, that is really a very malicious piece of malware now eating your computer alive because you installed it with administrative privileges because it is too inconvenient to have to type a password occasionally to modify your computer’s configuration. Or that directory you didn’t know what it was, so therefore was unimportant, that you deleted when you were trying to clear up space for your torrented movies. That might constitute a change.

It seems people have a fundamental misunderstanding with computers, that they can somehow execute the same code with the same data and do different things a different times. The computer is a fancy calculator, code is a series of button presses on that calculator. If you calculator told you that 2*2 is 4, would you expect a different answer after entering those same button presses one hundred thousand times? Not me. However the computer is a complex calculator capable of much more complicated math that 2*2, and because we do not understand all the math we assume that the computer is doing it differently sometimes than others. It is not, something has changed if the results are different. It isn’t fair to leave the developer guessing at what you changed. The number of times I have lost an entire day or more to finally figure out what the user changed, then to hear them say “Oh yeah, I did that, did that matter?” Yes it matters.

“I have an idea for …” - So do I. I have dozens of ideas right now, everyone of them is a potential million dollar idea. Yeah I should have executed on them, and I should be rich right now, but I had some bills to pay. There is never a lack of ideas, execution is the problem. Frankly, why haven’t you learned to code so that you can implement your idea? It is not rocket science. Here is the real kicker, if I did implement your idea, if I did all the work, made your idea a reality, you would expect at least a 50/50 split. I have been offered splits of 99/1 or worse in the ideas favor, and had the other part offended when I politely declined. Really, who contributes more, the contractor or the architect? Finally, most “brilliant ideas” are simply obvious extensions of the existing, the idea will neither be unique nor groundbreaking. And while it would be great to have app X, it will not make you a billionaire because it was obvious and someone else is already doing the same thing, or will copy you as soon as you begin to see success. That may seem pessimistic, but reality is harsh. Alta Vista? Excite@Home? MySpace? Yahoo!

“Digitally enhance that image so I can read the license plate” - The state of the art in movie technology makes it almost unbearable to watch a show that spends much time near a computer. There is no way to make more data than originally exists. That isn’t to say people can’t get creative, but hollywood isn’t getting creative, they have accepted that any image can be enhanced. The images below represent what happens with image enhancement. If you only start with 4 pixels as is the case on the far right, you aren’t going to get an image enhancement that means anything more than what you started with. With 5x5 or 25 pixels you still can’t tell it was an A, you might guess O or Q. It isn’t till you have 15x15 or 225 pixels that enhancement can give you an image that identifiably resembles the original A, but you can see that from the unenhanced view just as easily (frankly I had to cut the dot out of the 15x15 as the computer dropped had it filled in). Given that the majority of deployed security cameras are standard definition CIF or 352x240 84k pixels (.08 Megapixels) the chance a letter is going to have 225 pixels to it are slim unless the full image is the license plate. Granted the majority of cameras being deployed now are much higher resolution, there are a lot of existing cameras to upgrade, and the point remains. If it is not readable in the original image, enhancement isn’t going to fix it.

Don’t get me started on data recovery, hollywood really doesn’t understand when data is irrecoverable vs easily recoverable. I.E. smashing a cellphone to destroy the pictures on it.

“Why doesn’t it …” or “That’s nice but I need . . .” - Yesterday it didn’t do anything now there is something. If I showed it to you, it is because it represented a breakthrough or took a bit of effort and I wanted to show you that progress is being made. I know it’s not done yet I am not stupid, of course that is if you told me what you eventually wanted upfront. If you didn’t tell me and I have now delivered everything that you asked for, the first response had better not be, that is nice but.

“It’s missing feature X” - Why it is that people think features pre-exist and then the developer decides to remove them just to piss on the user is beyond me. Ok so they don’t really think that (do they?) but it is the way that they act. So yeah it doesn’t do X but it does do A-W, and without A-W X would be impossible, but yeah let’s focus on X.

“Can you export that to Excel?” - So you have your data in a complex, advanced programmatic environment, but you think the right answer is to extract it into an inferior environment lacking in flexibility, rather than allowing me to understand the end goal and build you a report that will be capable of running automatically?

“How soon will that be done?” - I am not baking a cake. I am not watching a video. I am not playing a sport. I am not driving to grandmas house. I am not converting a video or rendering a 3d file. Those are all things that can easily be measured and I could easily tell you how soon I would be done. However, I am executing a very creative process in which I need to balance a myriad of external factors and conditions in order to create the desired outcome, to instruct the computer to deal with all of those possible conditions. Conditions you did not think of when you created the spec, but would be very upset if I provided you a product that also did not consider those conditions. Further, I have no idea how many times you are going to interrupt me, nor do I have a crystal ball to know what unforeseen conditions will arise that I will then need to account for. And that is assuming you have asked me to do something I know how to do. If I am pushing the envelope, then how should I know in advance when I will come up with the correct algorithm or process in advance. It will be done when it’s done not a moment sooner or later. Any further attempts to drive the process forward more quickly, or gain further insight into when it will done are only insuring that it will take longer. If I quote you a time I have only thrown you a number to go and chew on so that you will allow me to continue trying to finish the project and stop delaying it further.

“How do you …?” - That I can do things you do not know how to do with a computer does not inherently mean that I know how to do all things with a computer. It does mean that I have been willing to try more things than you so have progressed further. Why don’t you go try something new? Why do you want me to sit here and try to do the thing you don’t know how to do? All I am doing is using Google the same as you could, I do not have a magic Google, my mouse clicks menus the same as yours, and you might learn something interesting if you go click around a new menu or two. I am willing to try something I do not know how to do today, why aren’t you?

“Oh we don’t need that anymore” - You just asked me to dedicate a chunk of my life to building you something that I am now passionate about and have poured my soul into it, but you never really needed it? You clearly never needed it because you stopped needing it before you had it. Why did I put all those late nights in? That you don’t need it anymore does not mean that I any less built it and made every effort to contribute. Your not needing it is not my failure, it was not I that wasted the time.

“They are both top priority!” - I do not think that means what you think it means. Perhaps I will work on neither until you can make up your mind. I certainly cannot work on them both at one time, I am going to have to choose one to work on before the other. Why should I be the one two flip a mental coin to decide which of your projects to work on first? I understand that you live in fear that only the project you tell me is top priority will ever be completed, and that paralysis make it impossible for you to tell me which one you want done now. But why is it that only the first project you tell me to work on ever gets done, and the other gets dropped? Surely, I am to blame, and I am the one who refuses to ever move on. It couldn’t be that you are unable to say, “That is good enough, let’s move on”. It couldn’t be that another top priority has come and you have now again told me to not work on number two because it really wasn’t as important as you thought it was. It couldn’t be that you really need to hire a junior programmer to work with me and improve the completion rate of projects allowing both to be worked in parallel. Certainly it is the damn developer that never makes it to phase 2.

Make a list, one item per line, and I’ll start at the top.

“Just split your time on both of these tasks” - This goes back to the last one about priority, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that a software developer works. It makes sense to a manager who breaks his day up into 1 hour or 30 minute blocks. It becomes very easy for him to allocate a certain number of blocks to each responsibility that he has and to thus split time across many projects. So why can’t the developer? If I am thinking about the time, I am not coding. I need to block everything out, that is why I am wearing these headphones that you hate, and why I have turned off the lights. I need to be able to load all of those variables and conditionals into my head so that I can begin molding them and expanding on them to create more and eventually complete one of those tasks. This spin up time is lost time, it is time where I am just trying to get back to state so that I can start making progress again. There is also a period of time after I stop, that I need to let go of all that I had in my head. If I start switching back and forth between projects, then I have double the spin up and come down time. The truth is that a developer is lucky to get one such block each normal work day. Now you want me to split time?

Paul Graham has written an excellent essay on the topic, I encourage anyone who wants to understand the impedance mismatch between development and management.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

“Just take a short break” - I am not hiking a mountain, I am not lifting weights. I do not need a short break, in fact this break where I stopped to listen to you ask me to take a short break has been far to long I am starting to forget where I am at and if I take much longer I am going to lose even more time. I want to be able to go home today, I want to be able to do so having accomplished something and every moment you are pestering me about a break is driving that quitting time off by 10x. I do not need a break, I need to keep it all in my head so I can keep moving forward.If I can take a break you’ll be the first to know because I won’t be sitting here trying to solve this problem.

Anything at All - Really we aren’t dicks, we do not hate you we are not just pretending to like you. However, as I am working, I now have a lot of information loaded into my head, the state of the code that I am working on. And every bit that you speak loses me 10 bits in my head. Thinking of a proper response costs me 100 bits. And so I try very hard to let you know that I care while not dropping any more bits than absolutely necessary. But you are still talking and I am now bleeding bits. If I stop to really talk to you as a human being and give you the care and concern that I know you need and deserve, I have just cost myself an hour of startup time, perhaps more. I will not be able to immediately begin where I left off as you walk away. In fact I might now check my email as I have lost state. That condition I was in the middle of accounting for is lost and forgotten. I may remember, not likely, more likely I may stumble across it again later, otherwise, you have just helped me to create a bug in the code. A condition that was not properly accounted for. I thought I had accounted for it because I thought about a solution for it and had begun to implement it, but then I was interrupted. Now I have moved on past that, yet the problem remains unsolved in code, only solved at one point in my head. Truth is I am politely nodding and smiling at you because I like you and don’t want to hurt your feelings, but inside I am trying like hell not to hear a word you say so that I do not lose my place.

Programmers are much like artists, not so much like builders. Many people think we are just moving blocks around and fitting them together like a builder does. We talk about modules and such that may lend to that misconception. We talk about copying and using a chunk of code, which also does not help. But most of the time we are artfully dissecting the problem and conditions, accounting for externalities that we cannot control in very creative ways like an artists brush stroke. If we were to start from the beginning and build it again, the art would be entirely different, unlike the builder who would build it the same way twice. Like the artist, we have a palette. We do not hold the palette in our hands, we hold it in our heads. We have poured out our colors onto it and mixed precisely the right shade to represent our solution on the canvas, our code. Now you have come to talk to me, interrupting, your words a bottle of paint thinner in your hands that you slowly poor over my palette washing away the carefully mixed colors, muddying them with others before the color was able to be applied to the canvas. Now my palette is either so muddied to be unusable or washed completely clean. I will need to begin anew, mixing colors. I will never find exactly that same perfect color that I had, but with any luck I will mix a different one just as good. Imagine the artist that had to cleanse his palette repeatedly through the day, that is your question, that is your meeting that you felt was so important. If you want me to be effective, leave me in my solitude, in my developers cave and let me paint.

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