Utopie
Inactive User
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2004
- Messages
- 2,955
- Reaction score
- 84
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.
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.