I heard about the repl.it bounties idea a while ago. I decided to check it out. The basic idea is you do programming tasks in exchange for “bounties” which are paid in some kind of repl.it token, which you can use to rent virtual servers or convert to cash.

I was shocked first by how bad the offers are and second how every post has multiple applications.

For example, one project I looked at involved setting up a custom analytics dashboard connecting to some random software, supporting multiple users, a few paragraphs of requirements - the pay was the equivalent of 90 USD. I guess the move is to hope that there is some out of the box software you could setup and configure for them in a few hours - but, realistically, this seems like days of work and multiple meetings to iron out requirements. For 90 dollars? This project already had many applications.

Another example was a bounty for a twitter bot that posted content from json. Seems straightforward enough. The offer was 4.50 USD. 3 people had already applied!

I could almost see the twitter bot making sense - assuming nothing about the new twitter/X has broken tweepy, then posting from a json file is trivial and should only take a few minutes. But, of course, there is all the overhead of applying for the job, interviewing, I guess, to get it - how else could they pick from one of many applicants. Ironing out the details and probably a little back and forth to demonstrate you’re done. The hourly wage here seems below 1 dollar.

I’m curious if anyone has tried doing repl.it bounties or has insight into how well this system does or doesn’t work.