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Comment on Sam Altman: “$30k to get a simple iPhone app created, $300 for a plumbing job”

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Really weird comparison. The type of job isn't specified even, but for $300 it had to be tiny. Probably a small fix.

So compare that plumbing job to say, fixing a bug in code, and you'll be a lot closer. Or go the other way and compare building an app from scratch to plumbing a house from scratch, and again will be a lot closer.

Plumbers in my parts charge about hourly what a dev makes. Making an app just takes a lot longer than whatever plumbing job is being referenced.

The other absolutely glaring "apples-to-oranges" point to be made is that there are very strict plumbing code standards that need to be adhered to. If I go into a house to put in a sink, there's pretty much one way I can do it. If I get hired to build an app, there are a limitless amount of combinations with which it can be built and deployed.

If I'm coming to fix a sink, I have a pretty good idea about how it will have been done. That's not the case for fixing a bug in an unseen codebase.

well, and an app is something you receive rights to, and can potentially resell to millions...

Yea, a large building that takes thousands of people to build costs billions of dollars.

Even replacing a faucet or garbage disposal will be $300+, easy. Labor is expensive. I replaced my last garbage disposal myself. I took a lot longer than a plumber would’ve because I had to go out to the store again to buy a washer.

To simplify. $100 for a new disposal, $100 to drive to a site (and also supplier to have disposal); $100 to do a 1 hour job.

Or, in my case, more like 3 hours to do a 1 hour job because I had forgot to put in that missing washer and had to take everything apart again. Haha.

If it makes you feel any better, when I replaced mine last time, it took like 4 hours because I thought my dishwasher was clogged and took it entirely apart.

You can easily guess what I did. The sad thing was, this wasn't my first time LOL.

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