I completely agree with your take on things Laran, but I would qualify it to say that its never really that simple.

Production of a non-trivial commercial web application has many parts. The code is a big part, but its not even close to all of it.

You’ve got to meet the client, sell the client, develop enough specs/stories to get started, and then do iterations with the client. These are often in-person with a product manager, or someone wearing that hat.

Then you’ve got to do deployment to production, hosting, and often, do onsite training.

And then there’s the management and organization of all of this.

I’d say the coding is no more than 50-60% of the cost of a typical application. And the more complicated the application is, the more intensive the ‘product manager’ role is, and the bigger share of overall costs which that requires.

Dont even get me started on how one or two rare (but critical) edge conditions can end up costing you as much to discover/define/develop as the rest of the 20%.

In addition, the staff you put in front of clients for the initial closing, and ongoing product manager roles are often quite high-end folks. They’re the face your clients associate with your company, are often owners, and their time isnt cheap.

And the extraction/conversion of ideas in your client’s mind to concrete features is not a trivial process.

The best consultants have a real skill in taking what people think they want and developing what will really be compelling features or approaches. It’s anything but a passive process where the client knows exactly what they want and can describe it clearly and unambiguously. Quite often the opposite, actualy.

So overall, while I agree that frameworks like RoR (which we use extensively now) are amazing and powerful and industry changing, the aspects that separate a good consulting company from a great one lie mostly in the non-coding work.

Good discussion, and despite my tangent above, there are truly some amazing things happening in frameworks that are changing the cost structure. no question.

Andrew Hollamon