The company in question is asking for someone to do actual work that they will use as part of the job interview, and then to work for free for 3 months, "non-negotiable".
You somehow think that is reasonable, and that anyone on HN who complains about it is simply whiny?
The same happened with this post. (Of course I think in this case the behavior is exploitative and abusive. But do notice that not all folks in the thread disagree with the practice. Unfortunately they’re getting downvoted for disagreeing.)
They want an HTTP endpoint that takes a file over POST. Then they want an HTTP endpoint that returns the list of files over GET. They would also like basic things like a way to take an auth token to check if you have permission to upload, some unit testing, etc.
If you think this is anywhere even near to the ballpark of "actual work that they will use in their product", you're insane. This is basically 95% Django boilerplate that an experienced Django dev would be able to type out faster than it takes me to write this comment. To suggest that "write and read a .jpg" is somehow a part of their system that they're outsourcing (rather than the kind of thing you can find written out in dozens of Stack Overflow answers) is absurd.
I don't know about apetresc but I'm vested in that being a good way to assess candidates, and think you're doing the world a disservice discouraging people from it just because you don't like the company/product/offer it's for.
They are looking for an intern.
If a company in San Francisco wants an intern who knows how to build a POST endpoint, believe me, that is not an unrealistic ask.
Interns are not expected nor required to have any experience. You're being entirely unreasonable if you're looking for experienced interns.
If you're friends were so experienced already that they could land an entry level job by 18 then why did they go to college at all?
BTW, in the context of a job posting, "experience," means "professional experience," not "I threw together some shitty code one weekend in high school."