Crowdsourcing: Arguments Against
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- abettertomorrow0
I was looking at the origin of the term, turns out it was invented just a few years ago in this article:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archiā¦
To be fair, he does paint a pretty broad picture of what crowdsourcing is. There are four different examples he sketches out, only one of which is the spec work scenario.
The problem is he fails to differentiate between the advantages/ disadvantages of these approaches. The first example he gives is iStockPhoto. I see this more as a system of selling goods just like on eBay. There's always the possibility I can sell what I've created, multiple times in fact, and if I leave the site I still own it, so I don't end up working for nothing.
The spec work scenario (third example) is actually quite different because in that case I do the work, and there's a high chance I get nothing out of it at all. It's a great paradigm for business owners and terrible for workers.
- monkeyshine0
In my mind crowdsourcing is leveraging the masses to solve a problem or accomplish a task. A classic example is Amazon Mechanical Turk (https://www.mturk.com/mturk/wel... Another example is when Netflix challenged teams of researchers to come up with a better recommendation algorithm. It's leveraging a group to collectively solve a problem vs. leveraging a group to individually compete against one another to design your shit for shittier wages. :)
- Glitterati_Duane0
The problem with arguing against it is that most designers use aesthetics as the main reason why it doesn't work. Aesthetics are subjective and clients rarely have the refined eye that I designer has. Therefore what we think looks like shit they may think looks amazing.