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The story
A company posted a job listing seeking an engineer to handle PHP version upgrades for WordPress sites, sparking discussion on 5ch. The listing cited a critical vulnerability announced by IPA (Japan’s Information-technology Promotion Agency) and the official PHP team as the reason for the work, named multiple target servers including Xserver, Sakura Internet, and Lolipop, and described the number of sites only as “numerous.” The thread’s main debate centered on how vague those conditions were, how low the pay was, and whether the line “we’d love it if you’re someone we can keep consulting going forward” was really just a request for free ongoing support.
What people said
Lol, this is dirt cheap.
Is this seriously the pay rate?
Just shows how many people out there are desperate enough to take it.
・CMS: WordPress (including updating to the latest version)
・Server: Xserver / Sakura Internet / Lolipop, etc.
・Number of sites: Numerous
What's with "numerous sites"?
There's no way you can even give a quote based on that.
Due to a critical vulnerability announced by IPA and the official PHP team, we are looking for an engineer to adapt our managed WordPress sites to the updated server environment (PHP version upgrade) and carry out the necessary update work.
This is a one-off job outside regular maintenance, but we'd be glad if you're someone we could keep consulting for similar issues going forward.
And they're asking you to keep looking after them forever on top of that, lol.
Probably exactly the kind of person who'd apply for this.
Can't be helped — pay peanuts and that's exactly the type of person you'll attract.
Fr crab 🦀 (a 5ch meme spelling of "true/agreed").
Could clean up a fortune doing that.
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2110853990254813184/vid/avc1/720×720/uduRHoADS4D0B0BP.mp4?tag=14
The typing in that is way too sloppy, lol.
Yep, exactly.
Same thing happened with COBOL — everyone's scrambling about it now too. lol
Right now their in-house IT guy is probably freaking out because nothing works after checking the update.
10,000 yen for 10 seconds — what's that work out to per hour?
Not sure if that's how this particular job goes, but if applying the patch breaks existing features, that gets pretty annoying.
Someone with zero work experience: "This looks easy, right?"
That's exactly why it's such a hassle that companies ride it right up to end-of-support — some even keep running it well past end-of-life.
A case like this one is probably an extreme exception, though.
You'd think they'd at least update before EOL (end-of-life).
Exactly that.
Seriously, legacy systems, man…
If you're hired as a full employee it's rough, but it's the job, so you just gotta do it.
When nothing's happening, the job's mostly daily backups and being the office's resident computer guru — so you gotta earn your keep at times like this.
There's basically zero backward compatibility, and you'll need to update all the old libraries too, but good luck!
Oh, and it's about 30,000 yen!"
If that's really the job, you'd need something like a million yen for it to be worth it.
"And the deadline's tomorrow!"
I'd only take it if it's hourly and they still pay even if I throw up my hands and give up.
Yeah, I think so too.
And of course there's no documented procedure waiting for you either.
It's probably a company that barely uses the internet anyway.
Just take down the website and go back to hustling with signs and flyers — problem solved.
"Someone we can keep consulting even after the job's done"
↑
This line is quietly brutal.
It's basically saying "handle it for free, forever."
Or maybe they already have.
There are probably backdoors scattered across Japan planted out of resentment from being worked to the bone for cheap wages.
Everyone just wasn't updating because nobody would pay for it.
Well, I guess it's our personal info that gets stolen, but…
Honestly, I'd almost rather the whole thing just collapse along with it.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Critical PHP vulnerability advisories are regularly published by IPA and PHP’s own developers, and WordPress sites that keep running outdated versions become increasingly attractive attack targets the longer they’re left unpatched. In practice, though, the actual update work often involves server migrations and compatibility adjustments for plugins and libraries, and migrating from versions before 8.0 in particular tends to require extensive fixes. The thread split over whether this job posting was “simple work” or a “minefield project,” pitting criticism of the low pay against the observation that a low budget is exactly what attracts only inexperienced applicants. Though not mentioned in the original article, it’s a well-known pitfall in freelance work that crowdsourcing-style listings mentioning “ongoing support welcome” often come with an implicit expectation of free continued support — a dynamic that likely fed into the thread’s reaction here.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Company: “Looking for someone to update our PHP!!!!!!!!”.”
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