Legalised Slavery

Utopie

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I'm a graphic/web designer but times are tough at the moment so could do with the extra cash and so recently tried out a site called crowdSpring.com.

It's a site where a buyer (client) posts a job, a job spec, and how much they will pay you for it, they are refeared to as 'crowdsourcing' sites, sometimes 'competition' sites and are part of new trend called 'weasel industries'. As the names and play on words suggest, these are nothing more than legalised sweatshops and slave labour where the only winner is the person posting the job who gets design work at a fraction of the normal cost.

The final straw was yesterday when I worked to a job spec to a T for around 5 hours, when the buyer came back and rated it 2/5 stars and said that it contained no 'lifestyle' photo's!!! Absolutly no where in the job spec did it mention lifestyle photo's, never mind say they were essential.

So after a couple of attempts of trying to contact the buyer to make him aware he had completly wasted my time and the site owners, I quickly realised that I would be shown the door while a hundred more compliant and equally desperate workers would be let in.

This site is just pure slavery and legal at that. Even though people voulenteer for the privalage of being used and abused, that doesn't make it right. I'm sure a lot of girls in the sex industry voulenteer for it, but they are still peoeple who are being taken advantage of becasue of their unfortunate situation.

I hope these sites receive some sort of vetting and offer protection and more rights for the workers soon - or get closed down as a lot of people would like to see as they are taking food from the table of people who work in this industry.
 
I can imagine people working for free / low cost because first they are not based in the UK, most likely in asia somewhere. Second people do it to build up their resume.
 
I can imagine people working for free / low cost because first they are not based in the UK, most likely in asia somewhere. Second people do it to build up their resume.

People work in sweatshop to put their kids through school... still be illegal in this country. Devalues graphic design and puts the desicion of what is classed as good work in the hands of the buyer, who in 99.9% of the cases has absolutly no idea what makes a good grpahic, like a patient telling the doctor what the best treament is for them.

But yes, a large majority of the people on these sites are Indian. $200 is probably worth 10x the amount to them than to someone in the west.
 
Don't you know the customer is always right, lol

The thing is the buyers are not paying for consultancy part of the service, the bit you can do your value add. I totally agree that 99% idea of a good website is not that great but I don't know if this is the kind of service that people using these sites are looking for. They have either done the design themselves (or got a friend to do it) and now they just want it coding.
 
Don't you know the customer is always right, lol

The thing is the buyers are not paying for consultancy part of the service, the bit you can do your value add. I totally agree that 99% idea of a good website is not that great but I don't know if this is the kind of service that people using these sites are looking for. They have either done the design themselves (or got a friend to do it) and now they just want it coding.

There is an old saying in the industry "Everyone's a web designer". People think because then can get some tripe together in Word or GeoCites, it classes them as a web designer. Too easy on that site for someone just rob your idea and run off and repo it themselves not paying anyone.

They need shutting down until there is some sort of organisation in place which keeps an eye on these sites and lays out rules and standards for them to ahear to, as they are getting away with so many immoral crimes at the moment...
 
Actually there is a growing trend in Ireland now to offer people jobs just for the experience so it will look good on their cv's, and i'm talking accountants, solicitors etc here, that are just finished college - they aren't even paying them travel expenses or lunch money!

The world has gone mad!
 
It's the way of the world nowadays.
People queue up to wear a uniform and be a plastic copper for expenses.
 
I only clicked here because i thought Witchy was telling people about treating me like a slave, but no, at least these people get SOMETHING. lolol
 
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