
The NOSPEC campaign vs. crowdSPRING - pchristensen
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1253-the-nospec-campaign-vs-crowdspring
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pchristensen
Maybe because I'm not a prestigious designer with anything to lose, but I
would think that by democratizing good designs, it would help companies that
could benefit from it and create a bigger market for "premium" design
services. The example of iStockPhoto was a good one - break down an artificial
restriction of supply and prices in general will come down while prices for
excellent work will go up.

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jcl
I don't know... Good designs are already "democratized" in the sense that
clients and designers are already in a free market situation. This site tips
the balance so far in favor of what clients want that I can't see it inspiring
anything but resentment in designers. The site will attract mostly
inexperienced designers and will democratize art the same way Rentacoder
democratizes code.

Traditionally, most designers generate multiple proposals for their clients --
but they are paid to do so. In the case of this marketplace, all unaccepted
proposals are unpaid. If, say, all designers have approximately equal chance
of developing a winning design, all designers will eventually have a run of
losing designs, just as a random walk is likely to go negative. This increases
the volatility of the artist's income, encouraging experienced artists to go
elsewhere.

The site actually refunds the client's money if they get less than 25
proposals on a project. Since the artist in the "hire" model may only be
generating 2-5 quality proposals, an artist using the site must either seek
payouts over five times greater than the "hire" model or they must put only a
fraction of the same effort into their proposals. This encourages rushed work
and the participation of inexperienced artists who can't accurately estimate
how much they need to charge to stay in business.

Probably the biggest problem, though, is that this model makes it very hard to
fight plagiarism. A client gets to see all the proposals, but they only need
to choose one accepted proposal. There is little to stop them from "borrowing"
elements from the other proposals without paying -- many artists do not have
the means to launch a copyright suit, especially over a design detail. Any
designer who experiences this a few times will sour on the site.

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run4yourlives
I wonder how many of these "professional designers" casually support the
downloading of music; harping about the RIAA on their blogs and in their
conversations?

One would think that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

