Experienced used-car shoppers know to look for rusty areas repaired with Bondo and painted over. The car may look great but is really rotten and rusting to pieces. I've seen unscrupulous sellers do things like mix iron filings into the Bondo to subvert buyers checking with a magnet. I've even seen a rust hole patched with an ingeniously superficial application of duct-tape, Bondo and paint.

I am very glad my new job starts tomorrow, because the freelance web work I am doing has descended to the web equivalent of painting over duct-tape and Bondo. Beyond the shiny new paint, the vehicles are spectacularly decrepit. I wish I could say this is a unique problem with a particular client, but it is, in fact, epidemic and the unifying theme of just about all the work I have done for the past three years. 

I'm done with clients who point to $50,000 websites and say "I want that, but I only have $500." You don't get a brand new car for $500. For $500 you get duct-tape and Bondo. I'm done with duct-tape and Bondo.