Cheap Content: Not Our Fault, but Our Responsibility
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There’s no denying it. Love it or hate it, outsourcing is
here to stay. Technically speaking, if you’re a freelancer then you’re part of
the outsourcing trend and quite possibly the problem. No, no need to start
taking a mental inventory of your moral standards, outsourcing per se is not a
bad thing. A whole world of opportunity has been created with the increasing
demand for talent and affordable services that the growth of the global
marketplace has made available and it would be silly to ignore such an
opportunity. There are, however, some unfavorable facets of this outsourcing
trend that can leave a less than enjoyable aftertaste if you’re not fully
prepared for the challenges it represents.
First and foremost, let’s allow that yes, outsourcing has
resulted in the loss of jobs that were once the sole domain of the full time skilled
employee. The very real and reasonable reasons why this is include the fact
that employers are able to contract with individuals outside the company on an
as needed basis. Rather than carry staff fulltime who may only be utilized to
their full potential part time, employers can contract out work only when it is
needed. This has the added benefit of also allowing companies to expand their
range of services and offerings while keeping expenditures and outlays to a
minimum. As more and more companies do this, yearly revenues continue to show
sustained growth despite a reduction in the size of the overall workforce.
The downside of course is the drying up of positions and
more importantly, the adverse effect on wage scales and freelancing rates that
have occurred as a result of unregulated and unchecked competition for these
opportunities. With the advent of the world wide web, it has become possible
for employers to shop through a global marketplace of workers. While this is in
large part responsible for the wealth of opportunity that freelancing offers,
it also creates serious issues as workers from highly disparate economic
conditions compete for the same jobs. Without regulations of any meaningful
kind in place to regulate this global marketplace, the wildly differing economic
conditions among providers have acted to depress the value of all workers and
their products. When someone from India can subsist happily on the equivalent
of 10,000 dollars a year and his counterpart in America requires at least twice
that for the same living standards, a serious problem arises.
Although capitalism and free market principals are the
backbone of beneficial and healthy trade, they are not foolproof or perfect.
Without any means of control or moderation, the natural tendency to buy low and
sell high runs rampant in the freelancing marketplace. Providers from country’s
with weak economic conditions are able to bid on work at rates that would
quickly ruin their counterparts in countries with more expensive living
standards. Where market values for a skill may have run in a comfortable range
for the western worker, the sudden and unregulated introduction of workers from
the Philippines, India, China and other nations has worked to devalue these
skills as western employers find themselves unable to resist the lure of
extremely cheap labor. Despite the problems that have arisen with quality
control, worker integrity and communication and the fact that many employers
are now retreating from the online labor marketplace as a result, the overall
trend towards depressed rates continues.
As much as I would like to offer an easy solution, this
simply is not possible. I will say, however, that if this trend towards poor rates
and unrealistic competition is to ever change, the solution will certainly have
to start with the providers and not the employers. For my part, I now refuse to
even consider rates less than ¾ of my chosen standards. I no longer travel the
diplomatic route and instead strongly encourage those interested to avoid
patronizing mills and work for hire sites that encourage unrealistic bidding. I’ve
even been preparing to launch a bidding site of my own geared towards
regionally specific employers and providers.
As a freelancer or online entrepreneur, the question here is, if you see this as a
problem, what are you going to do, if anything?
Hi Paul, I just ran into your blog via LinkedIN, the group The Blog Zone :) Reading the article above reminded me of the times when I had to promote some giveaways on my blog and I had to turn to some other blogs to help me with a review, a link or something like that. A lot of blogs in my domain are owned by people in less developed countries, who would do anything for a couple of bucks, I collaborated with a very few, but I wasn’t so satisfied. On the other hand, I tried to reach out to fellow bloggers from the states, for example and some of them didn’t even answer my email. I don’t really know what is the optimal solution here… :)
Thank you for the post, it was a great read.
Thanks Adriana and I appreciate you stopping in. You’re absolutely right that there is no simple answer. One thing that can be done, however, is for reputable providers to stand firm in their rates and refuse projects that would devalue their efforts.