I know, for this service specifically I will spin it in a different direction, more towards of a professional contracting network.
But for now I'm more curious whether the whole buying into a project is realistic.
I would at least like to raise the bar a bit. A $50 buy-in would shave off 90% of spam bids, and I would do the same for buyers with an even larger buy-in cost. If there are no offers then you lose the money, which means something's wrong with your specs.
Scoop: Contractors will not be quantified by 400 tasks each worth $5.
Contractors will be able to include their stackoverflow profile, github, blogs, articles written, personal or paid projects, endorsements, along with usual reviews. This provides a much better assessment on the type of person, and yes, communication and people skills.
I've spoken with countless people complaining that they tried going with a freelance and they gave up when the individual disappeared. This is the problem we have to fix and I'm willing to bet there are enough buyers looking to buy real service for their money.
oh, I (almost) agree! The thing that I don't agree with is that _often_ you get $50k worth of work for $1k. It _may_ seem this way at a first glance, but a lot of projects end up being cancelled (wasting everybody's time) and if you do get something for your money, on the medium/long run it will cost you the same and more: for lost time, bad choices, no support, difficulty to update/upgrade the product, etc, etc. Lately, the entire "Development" field has gotten a bad vibe, of mis-understood, unreliable and difficult to control wizards.
And I think it's time for buyers to be educated on how this should work.
I'm not even going for these guys anyway, I don't need the buyer looking to spend $200 for a Google clone (yes, I've seen this), I don't need the guy selling crap for $5/hour, crap that needs to be re-written completely for it to work, I don't need arrogant asshole buyers, or low-bid cheap spammers.
We want to attract the enterprise market. That means A LOT less projects, paid submissions, reviews every step, guaranteed support from contractors, bug-free warranties, higher costs and significantly better service.
As you said, it's a very much uphill battle, but I'm willing to try (or else I'll go back to feeling sorry for myself).
So, I need all the support I can get, sign-up.