They can spin this any way the want, at the end of the day, they're trying to do one thing:
find programmers dumb enough to work for free.
find programmers dumb enough to work for free.
The people that would get into that, are EXACTLY the kind of people that they need least.
out of all 4 strawmen you posted, you hiring me was the funniest . . .
"self-proclaimed technical prowess"
Ok buddy, please quote me proclaiming my technical prowess or do STFU