

The Crowdsourcing Debate: Egalitarian or Evil? - hurricane
http://thomvest.com/blog.html?fb_15675306_anch=15840255

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KMStraub
I thought this article was going to be about the controversial theory of
crowdsourcing in the wider sense--not just design. With these deceiving
headlines, you attract a lot of people like me who rain on your parade and
unfortunately, think your article is a snooze.

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martinkallstrom
My take on this debate (would love to get a hole or several punched through
this reasoning, so please give it your best):

* People being concerned about the prevalence of crowd-sourced or spec work are right to speak loud and clear about their concerns, and campaign against it wherever they get the chance.

* People not sharing those concerns are right to set up or participate in competitions/spec work if they want to, and draw their own conclusions from their experience.

But are there any objective reasoning to apply beyond the subjective concerns?
At no-spec.com people campaigning against spec work have had years and years
to formulate their reasoning, their FAQ probably lay down the facts best:
<http://www.no-spec.com/faq/>

The entire FAQ, although verbose, basically boils down to two assertations:

A. Spec work often gives out false promises about further, "real", employment
opportunities once the competition is won.

B. If you give out spec work, you can expect inferior results because proper
care will not be spent on research prior to carrying out the work.

There is also the conclusion that as a designer you should always try to
retain the rights to the work, but that seems to apply to all projects and not
only spec work.

To sum up, the conclusion I draw from the No-spec campaign FAQ is: It is ok to
arrange spec work competitions as long as you don't give out false pretentions
about the rewards going to the winner, and you find the risk of inferior
results acceptable.

Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

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trustfundbaby
I actively _hate_ Crowdsourcing of this nature ... but we shouldn't demonize
people for asking for something ... especially when lucid adults respond
favorably to their requests. This are just good old market forces at work ...
and the market is trying to commoditize a product (the service of design).

What needs to happen is, the industry has resist that push.

Figure out how to make sure the people providing services in this industry
understand their worth, how the effect of their participation in these
competitions cheapens the industry, and heightens the expectations of
customers to ridiculous levels (Show me a lawyer that'll participate in a
crowdsourcing contest for their services)

I suspect that since that is a much harder task than flaming people who choose
to crowdsource logos and website design though, that we'll just have more of
the later.

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arihelgason
Who says being egalitarian and being evil are mutually exclusive?

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alsomike
I read this right after another story I found on HN - The Youth Unemployment
Bomb:
[http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/07_52/b40...](http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/07_52/b4064058743638.htm)

It's relevant because one of the methods for reducing unemployment was
encouraging entrepreneurship. Considering the small chances of startup
success, isn't the relationship between Crowdspring client / designers exactly
the same as Venture Capitalist / startup founder? Most of the designs are
losers, just like most startups. You could even extend this logic to social
media participation - lots of people make YouTube videos, a few get huge and
earn a share of the advertising dollars, same with blogging.

When there's an oversupply of skilled labor, you can switch to a contest model
instead of an employment or contractor model, driving down the costs even
more. This problem affects young, relatively well-educated Westerners, and as
the Business Week article points out, this is the root of the current
political violence in Egypt. Companies trying to find new ways to grow will
demand tax cuts, governments will cut benefits to give it to them because they
want to see improved unemployment numbers, and this will further enrage the
struggling unemployed. If this trend continues, it's a downward spiral that
could bring increased political violence in the West.

