Many of you see what you think is a good deal but in fact you're being taken advantage of. Take for example an app I want developed. Everyone except one honest person from India bid it for $5000 usd. Which is outrageous! I am trying to get a deal. Here in the USA it's about $5000 to develop. A software engineer in India makes anywhere from $4000 usd to $8000 usd a year! Per year!!! Giving the benefit of a doubt at $9000 a year that is only $4.50usd per hour! So if you're paying more than $800 for an app that takes 160 hours to develop then you are getting ripped off! Plain and simple. Please share this on other sites so we all aren't getting ripped off. Any questions feel free to ask.
The internet makes all non-onsite jobs equal. If you live in a "low-rent" area of the US, and do web development, you charge the same as someone living in San Francisco. No one discounts for his cheaper living costs. Of course, when you look at some of the complaints from people who have hired Indian programmers (and include the fact that your legal recourse will cost more than the amount you could get back if you sue), you can easily see that hiring someone in the US is the better choice. You don't save any money, but a US developer is used to producing for his money, and suing, even in another state, is a lot cheaper. (It's also illegal anywhere in the US to take money under false pretenses - and a phone call can get an investigation started.)
You know there are some benefits such as costs hiring off elance. You can get quite a few developers bidding from all around the world and foreign counties such as india will normally have the lost bid. However in my experience, half the time I got what I paid for and ended up banging my head against the wall. The good thing about using elance is that you can set a price and milestones and you don't have to pay if you aren't satisfied.