Pay For Quality
It is so sad to see the net fall from a great lace to do business to a den full of thieves and scammers. A good example of this are persons who contact you having big sites making money and ask you to do edits, design, etc. For next to nothing. One of the big reasons for this are wannabe designers (mostly teens) who claim to be able to do the same thing as a professional. Most times the cheap client will run after this just because it is virtually free. The results, no communication from the worker, no quality design (or copied design made to look like they did it). How do I know that? I get those same clients running back to us saying things like "You reply so fast" or "You did it just the way we wanted it" or "That is quality work, I was not expecting that". Some clients don't care though and they are willing to go after the cheap half rate services they are accustomed too. That is not the end of it though. When the wannabes can't do something they need done they come asking you if you will do it for $1, $2 or $5, yes some of them expect you to actually work for that kind of money. Who in this age works for that kind of money? Come on, have some self respect.
A lot of what I see with the issue of work on the internet, is an ignorance when it comes to the work that is admitted. I agree fully that there is often many teens that come along and think they know what they are doing and they clearly don't. That ruins it for other people in the business. I was once interested(Still sort of am in graphic design for websites, but I have seen the stress and hard work that is put into it for such little results when working for a company.
Of course this is not true for every company, but is my opinion from what I've seen. I think that it is worth all that in the end once you have found the respectable business deserved and feel the results of your work, such as making people happy and bringing them together. For example look at what the guy who made facebook went through before he finally got the results he deserves.
Out of curiosity, how long have you been in the business of web designing and writing code, JB? Also, do you like it so far, and was it what you expected it to be as a career? This is coming from a teen who is very interested in this career as well. (Possibly)
A guy, who has been Emailing me over the past few years about his intention for me to do a job but he never does, Emailed me recently demanding that I should start working with him now because he paid someone else a lot of money and it did not work out. In other words, he went the cheap route, got burned and then expects me to fix his problems on demand - does not work that way. After spending a lot of money what makes you think you can afford my services now AND you don't demand my work especially after I have been cordially awaiting your project for years .