Sometimes I wonder if anyone has ever posted to HN not believing they are in the top 50%, 10%, or 1%. It's like how everyone's kid is above average. The topic of how everyone else sucks seems to be evergreen.
Everyone's just trying to get by. If someone gets less work, that isn't reason to think that they have poor skills, or are screwing over small businesses.
That's why I made sure to include that there are people in the bottom half of that pyramid who I think will get to the top half, because eventually I believe they'll move either to the top half of the pyramid, or outside of the pyramid altogether.
But I stand firm in my belief that a lot of the people who are firmly planted there have poor skills or they're delivering far less value than what could be gotten through, say, Squarespace.
I agree with this, I've seen a lot of "custom" sites done for small businesses which, in the end, looked worse than setting up a Squarespace site with a some pretty photos.
The custom sites took tons of time, lots of client back and forth, and in the end probably weren't as well optimized as a Squarespace site. A great designer can definitely do some amazing things, but a lot of people in the lower half should just focus on sending out some Squarespace promo codes, at least they can get some free hosting that way.
Everyone's just trying to get by. If someone gets less work, that isn't reason to think that they have poor skills, or are screwing over small businesses.