Poll: What will be the most common measure to invoice language services in 2030? Konuyu gönderen: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What will be the most common measure to invoice language services in 2030?".
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I have no crystal ball and I’m no good at predictions. Will 2030 be very different from 2024? Will I still be translating in 2030? For the last 4 decades, I have been invoicing by word most of the time and by project occasionally.
| | | | Ventnai 
İspanya
Local time: 07:07
Almanca > İngilizce
+ ...
Nothing is going to change right now. By number of words, as nearly always.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Hollanda
Local time: 07:07
Üye (2006)
İngilizce > Afrikaans
+ ...
More and more agency clients are ditching the word rate and working with an hourly rate. It's not a calendar hour, though: they count the words and then an AI tells them how many hours it would take, and that's the number of hours that they offer. Whether it takes less time or more time is not the issue -- you get paid for quoted hours, not calendar hours.
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Samuel Murray wrote:
More and more agency clients are ditching the word rate and working with an hourly rate. It's not a calendar hour, though: they count the words and then an AI tells them how many hours it would take, and that's the number of hours that they offer. Whether it takes less time or more time is not the issue -- you get paid for quoted hours, not calendar hours.
Well, there are plenty online platforms so no need AI to count the hours. If you are online and working, they will see that you are actually working.
And ofc, the time is money, otherwise I'll spend my time on other things rather than working for you. That's why you pay for my time.
And, Samuel, do you own a company? What is it with this pettiness, man? You know that it's not in your favor as a freelancer?
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belçika
Local time: 07:07
Üye (2020)
Fransızca > Hollandaca
+ ...
Samuel Murray wrote:
More and more agency clients are ditching the word rate and working with an hourly rate.
Not one of my agency clients offers an hourly rate instead of a word rate.
By the way, why would you even consider to work for agencies who rely on AI to tell you how much you can earn ? I have one agency client who announced "dynamic pricing" based on AI in the future. I immediately replied that I will never accept that kind of pricing. As a freelancer that would mean 0 control, which is simply unacceptable.
[Bijgewerkt op 2024-12-16 14:05 GMT]
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I doubt that I'll be translating in 2030 but, if I am, it will still be me, not the client (direct or agency) that decides what measure I use for invoicing.
I've worked with clients who measure in "pages" (1500, 1800 or 2000 keystrokes), in "words" (is "proz.com" one word or two?), in "lines" (55 keystrokes or 50). They can use what they want but I name my price in the measure of my choosing, which has never changed since 1994 and it'll still be the same in 2030.
That'... See more I doubt that I'll be translating in 2030 but, if I am, it will still be me, not the client (direct or agency) that decides what measure I use for invoicing.
I've worked with clients who measure in "pages" (1500, 1800 or 2000 keystrokes), in "words" (is "proz.com" one word or two?), in "lines" (55 keystrokes or 50). They can use what they want but I name my price in the measure of my choosing, which has never changed since 1994 and it'll still be the same in 2030.
That's the way things work in just about every profession other than translation - does the customer or client ever name the price for products or services purchased from fishmongers, dentists, taxi-drivers, electricity suppliers, opticians or any other one can think of? No, only translation agencies have this privilege - and translators are the suckers who give it to them.
Our profession is in its dying days, so it doesn't really matter now but it's sad to see that we still insist on letting them get away with it.
Simon
PS: I use my measure and name my price but I do help my client by converting to the system they use, at least for the first two or three times. After that, they can work it out for themselves and use inches, words, kilos, keystrokes or whatever they like to measure my work.
PPS: Come to think of it, beggars and charities don't name their price, so maybe the list should read "beggars, charities, and translation agencies". Even prostitutes are not on the list. But we're still the suckers ▲ Collapse
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Samuel Murray wrote:
and then an AI tells them how many hours it would take.
So, they already *trust* AI for timing your work… interesting. How long would you think AI will tell them that they don't need your translation work at all (regardless the rate)?
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IrinaN
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Local time: 00:07
İngilizce > Rusça
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? AI just might come up with it, why not?
| | | | Mario Chávez
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Local time: 01:07
Üye (Jun 2024)
İngilizce > İspanyolca
+ ...
Thinking time is left unpaid unless we enforce it. Think about it.
MC
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Mario Chávez wrote:
Thinking time is left unpaid unless we enforce it. Think about it.
MC
Many years ago, I worked as an executive secretary. Matters important to my boss's responsibilities in the organization crossed my desk, and I was often tasked with prioritizing them. One day, my boss walked by and saw me sitting at my work station, seemingly idle. She asked me what I was doing and I said I was thinking. She told me to stop and to get back to work.
After that, I cared a whole lot less about how well I prioritized her matters.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Hollanda
Local time: 07:07
Üye (2006)
İngilizce > Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Gjorgji & @Lieven | Dec 16 |
Gjorgji Apostolovski wrote:
And, Samuel, do you own a company? What is it with this pettiness, man? You know that it's not in your favor as a freelancer?
What pettiness are you talking about, Gjorgji?
Lieven Malaise wrote:
By the way, why would you even consider to work for agencies who rely on AI to tell you how much you can earn?
I see little difference in practice between AI and algorithms. When you do a word count of a text and you include fuzzy matching, you have no idea how the CAT tool calculates the fuzzy matches, and you accept it blindly. If the CAT tool tells you a segment is a 94% match, you don't question it -- you assume the CAT tool developer will have had some skill in coming up with an algorithm to calculate it, and you just accept it.
Gjorgji Apostolovski wrote:
Well, there are plenty online platforms so no need AI to count the hours. If you are online and working, they will see that you are actually working.
Although in theory a client could track your work in realtime (i.e. start the clock each time you open a segment and stop the clock each time you commit the segment), I've never actually seen it happen. At least, not with any of my clients. I work for several clients using online platforms, but the pricing is usually calculated on how much time it is assumed that I will spend, and not on how much time I actually spend.
That said, I do know that some companies had used realtime tracking in the past decade during research into how fast translators can translate and how much time machine translation saved, but I've never heard of such tracking being used to calculate how long a translator actually works on a project for the purpose of billing. I don't think it would make sense either, since it would mean that slow translators would get paid more than fast translators.
[Edited at 2024-12-16 21:23 GMT]
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Lieven Malaise
Belçika
Local time: 07:07
Üye (2020)
Fransızca > Hollandaca
+ ...
Samuel Murray wrote:
I see little difference in practice between AI and algorithms. When you do a word count of a text and you include fuzzy matching, you have no idea how the CAT tool calculates the fuzzy matches, and you accept it blindly. If the CAT tool tells you a segment is a 94% match, you don't question it -- you assume the CAT tool developer will have had some skill in coming up with an algorithm to calculate it, and you just accept it
You can more or less see for yourself if a fuzzy match percentage is correct or not. I'm working with Trados basically every day since the year 2000 and I simply don't see a reason to doubt if those percentages are correct or not. A 94% fuzzie looks like a 94% fuzzie, a 50% fuzzie looks like a 50% fuzzie, etcetera. Which isn't the case for a dynamic price that would simply be based on an algorithm you would know nothing about. You would just have to accept it "because AI says so". That's bonkers.
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