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Comment by rolleiflex | Hacker News Reader

I will probably be scalded here for saying this here, but here it goes: this just dropped my appreciation of Jeff Attwood and Stack Overflow two notches.

I just cannot appreciate a developer using such a site, while a sizeable portion of developers also work on very similar premises compared with designers; hourly payment and no spec work. (i.e. we'll buy your application if we like it.) For some people, mostly executives and other business oriented disciplines, this is a fair deal as it is what the free market bears; they do not and will not care about long-term health of the industry, the other side of the stick, or the designer on the line. It just doesn’t click for them, and that’s understandable somewhat because they’ve never been in a similar situation before.

But a developer using this service knows exactly what this entails, they are aware of the concept of spec-work, and maybe even had to do it for some reason. My problem is not the amount of money per-se, but with doing work for nothing, hoping that it will pay in the future. A developer cannot claim ignorance. It’s just plain nonchalant lack of empathy.

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>> For some people, mostly executives and other business oriented disciplines, this is a fair deal as it is what the free market bears; they do not and will not care about long-term health of the industry, the other side of the stick, or the designer on the line. It just doesn’t click for them, and that’s understandable somewhat because they’ve never been in a similar situation before.

I think you have all your work ahead of you to show that using 99designs and similar sites has any real effect on the "long term health of the industry." Similarly, I don't see how it represents a lack of care for the designer on the line, seeing as to how numerous designers happily use the site themselves.

You say that your problem is not the amount of money, but with the concept of spec work -- "doing work for nothing." And to that I reply that I totally agree. Doing work for nothing is a problem. But you're blaming the wrong person. You should blame the people who choose to do that work, not the people who offer to buy it. Designers are perfectly capable of saying, "No, I don't like doing work that will possibly be for nothing, therefore I won't participate in 99designs." Nobody is holding a gun to any designers' heads and forcing them to apply this questionable business model to their work.

You could argue that it's still unethical on the part of the client, because they're taking advantage of ignorant designers who are unaware that they are entering into an (arguably) bad deal. But that line of reasoning doesn't hold water, because 99designs makes it very clear what the arrangement is. Nobody here is unaware of the risks of doing competitive spec work.

You could also argue that the problem isn't with the designers who participate in spec work, but with how their decision affects the market for desginers who don't want to do that. But if a large number of designers can be persuaded into doing spec work, then some combination of the following facts are true: (a) there are too many designers, (b) there are too few people requesting high quality design. In either case, it means simply designers may not be worth as much as you think they are, in the numbers you think they should be. I hardly think you can call someone's morals into question for not choosing to donate extra money to designers.

Considering the amount of times this turned in the replies to my comment, I probably have made a mistake that made it sound like I am questioning 99designs’ legality. I am not. They are perfectly legal. Designers knowing what they’re getting is what makes them legal—no one is forcing anyone to do anything they do not want to partake in. I should probably edit my comment, but after so many replies, it would break the train of thought so I am leaving it as it is.

What I do is also far enough from the design discussed here to allow me to take this problem as largely an academic one, for disclosure’s sake. I do not work in the market serviced here.

However, I do have a problem with the moral aspect of using spec work—it’s not about free will, that would be a problem of legality, not morality, because our western society decided that free will is an important enough thing to protect that we have laws matching our moralities on that subject. What, then, makes us have laws on minimum wage? There are jobs that can be serviced for lower-minimum wage, there are employers that would gladly offer lower-than-minimum wage, and there surely are people that would take them in a heartbeat. We do have that laws in part because it’s just plain immoral to ask people to work for free or nearly-free even when they know what they’re getting, much to the capitalist’s chagrin, and in part because it would create a race to the bottom on all parts of the society. Designers being offered spec work is just a way smaller-scale version of this. That said, the issue of minimum wage is an open ended question which I am utterly unqualified to comment further on.

>> We do have that laws in part because it’s just plain immoral to ask people to work for free or nearly-free even when they know what they’re getting, much to the capitalist’s chagrin, and in part because it would create a race to the bottom on all parts of the society.

Well, I didn't mean to question the point of minimum wage. For typical salaried jobs, I completely understand and somewhat agree with the notion that it's unethical to pay below a certain amount.

However, I think that freelancing, entrepreneurship, etc, are a different realm. These are not people who've been interviewed, hired, and retained by a company. Instead, they are people who possess (and/or are developing) a set of skills that they hope to exploit on their own via a business model of their choosing. In my opinion, these differences are significant enough to warrant an entirely different set of moral considerations.

Take myself, for example. Today I'm some combination of a web developer, designer, and sysadmin, but I got my start doing pure web design. I was terrible at first. I doubt I could have landed a serious job at a decent company. But I enjoyed doing contract work where I could, and I enjoyed entering design contests as well. If nothing else, they were a chance to work on my skills and creative processes to see how they compared with others. And, best-case scenario, I could make some money while feeling good about winning. It felt like the furthest thing away from being taken advantage of.

I think minimum hourly wage restrictions are bad. Such restrictions hurt low-skilled workers the most, by denying them a change of getting gradual improvement in experience while doing low-paying jobs.

How about the many stack overflow users who contribute questions and answers on a regular basis? Are they being ripped off by Jeff and Joel, too? NO. Because Stack Overflow provides us with a very valuable platform. By posting our questions and answers, we accrue valuable reputation on the internet. This is proven and true, and the reason careers 2.0 is working out great.

Now, if you take a look at the link to the original 99 designs contest, you'll see that the artist who won the contest is now known as "Please_Remove" -- gee, I wonder why? Perhaps because he was able to use 99designs as a conduit for his graphic design career and is now taking on much bigger and better projects? I'm sure after designing such an iconic logo like that, you'll become famous.

So, you see. We participate in these crowdsourced sites because there's something in it for all of us. I post on SO, for me. I understand others benefit from my posts, but I'm there for two reasons: demonstrate my knowledge, and sponge up everyone else's knowledge.

People working on 99designs might not even be designers yet. But they're getting valuable experience in what clients want, every time they attempt a design, whether they win it or not.

The people on 99designs are not people who have their full schedule booked up with work. And ergo, they have taken a radical and brave step to change that. By subjecting their work to the scrutiny of market forces, they will see if they truly have what it takes to swim.

You can argue no-spec all you want but the two facts remain that make 99designs 100% legit:

    * Everyone working there is doing so voluntarily
    * Everyone shopping there is doing so voluntarily

No one is forcing you to do anything, and the people working on 99 designs are clearly benefiting from it if they are worth half their salt as designers.

Not only do developers get rep for posting answers on SO, it's a good intillectual exercise to challenge ourselves. Knowing something is one thing, being able to explain it coherently is another level of understanding that is very valuable to cultivate.

Similarly, posting on 99 designs is a perfectly selfish act. It's a great no-pressure exercise to hone your skills without having to worry about client requirements. I really don't understand why professional designers feel so threatened by spec. 99% of the time, 99 designs is a perfect example of why you should hire a professional designer.

Oh hey could you code the backend and frontend of my site for free?

C'mon, if you do so, you demonstrate your knowledge, you'll get famous, you'll get experience, and hey your schedule isn't booked with work right? C'mon, people answer questions on our site so it's totally the same thing! Collaboration!

My company has millions of dollars but yeah we don't have a budget for it. Don't ask me why, just do the work.

Wait, you want to get paid for that work? Jeez, you are one entitled person.

Such a model wouldn't work because the backend and frontend of a site are far much more work than a logo.

That isn't to say you couldn't spend an equivalent amount of man-hours designing a logo. But it is to say that the designs on 99designs obviously don't have the same amount of work put into them, otherwise the site would be infeasible.

You can argue otherwise, but the fact that there isn't a business for this just like 99designs flourishing is enough proof for me that it won't work.

Also, if someone wants to make such a business, I welcome it. Doesn't mean I'll participate.

I'm a designer, honestly, a logo takes a few hours. If they want 15 variations, extensive input, full service, they're going to have to pay someone local by the hour. Or they can try betting on 99 designs. It helped me hone my skills early on, and the criticism was just as loud back then. I think the complaints have more to do with designers wanting to 'pull the ladder up behind themselves'.

EDIT: Forgot to add, 99 Designs does not supply the most important ingredient: judgement. If a client with no design sense uses 99 Designs they will pick a crappy logo, while a professional designer may have been able to steer them in the right direction. Their loss.

> I'm a designer, honestly, a logo takes a few hours.

Please don't state this as fact, it's really dependent on the project, the client and your process.

I am not making the argument that using 99designs is not legal, I'm making the argument that it is not moral. It’s a society’s job to match legality to morality, and just like everyone has different opinions on morality, you’re more than welcome to use as it is legal. If people were forced to work there, it would not be legal.

>Now, if you take a look at the link to the original 99 designs contest, you'll see that the artist who won the contest is now known as "Please_Remove" -- gee, I wonder why?

Going with your assumption that he or she became famous, why does she want to be not seen anymore at a spec-work site, one would think? It's either because he / she is embarrassed to worked at one time at a spec work site, or that he or she, after gaining experience, understood that spec-work is actually not that good of an idea. Considering the weakness of no-spec organized movement amongst designers, I would say the latter.

I also happen to be an active contributor to the Stack Overflow, and I find it very useful. I also contribute. It’s a fair deal. But it’s not spec-work. I have no expectation of compensation. While seemingly similar, it’s stands at a very different place.

That said, I agree that 99designs is a good training ground for budding designers, nonetheless it not existing would be an even better one.

> If people were forced to work there, it would not be legal.

Indeed, if people were forced to work anywhere, it would not be legal.

Untrue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai

Touche! Prison is a special exception to most logical arguments. Indeed, it would be perfectly legal for convicts to be forced to compete in 99designs style competitions too, unless that fails the "cruel and unusual" punishment laws ;)

>Going with your assumption that he or she became famous, why does she want to be not seen anymore at a spec-work site, one would think? It's either because he / she is embarrassed to worked at one time at a spec work site, or that he or she, after gaining experience, understood that spec-work is actually not that good of an idea

I would assume he/she is embarrassed to be seen on a spec work site because of people like OP above who actively work to shun those people.

I don't understand this sort of complaint. Are the participating designers being deceived? Are they being forced to participate? Are they being subjected to conditions that are hazardous to their health? If not, what is wrong with participating in this sort of thing?

I am a happy 99designs customer, and I sleep well at night.

I agree. It's by choice that people participate in this type of website, with the knowledge that they may not be paid. No one is forcing designers to partake.

You're making the same argument that a well-rounded executive would make, as I said in my post. It's what the free market bears. You certainly have the right to use 99designs, and I'm happy you're satisfied using it.

Since you've created this developer vs. executive dichotomy, I should point out that I am most certainly a developer, and only an executive in the sense that anyone can print out business cards. I do not care about maintaining high wages for designers, just like they don't care about maintaining high developer wages. Everyone wants to pay less for goods and services, and demonizing people for that when none of the moral lines I mentioned have been crossed doesn't make sense to me.

I see. I can understand—I have many clients, and I wear equally many hats. Executive was probably a wrong choice, project manager would be a better one. When I assume the project manager role, I also face the same problem. I could use this glorious source of extremely cheap labor when there is a need for low-to-mediocre quality of design work (think mockups, non-approved explorations), and by all means, I should. The fact that I don’t is completely a result of my personal and naïve beliefs, and I have no illusion that avoiding this makes me a better project manager—on the contrary, someone that could just do that would be a better PM than I am. Because a project manager, or an executive should not be taxed with morality, only legality: it’s societies’ and nations’ job to ensure the moral matches the legal. This is arguably the reason why there is such a thing called minimum wage. We could remove it, and there are certainly jobs that would offer lower-than-minimum wage as there are people that will gladly take them. Why do we inject inefficiencies into the system, then? That’s the underlying, open-ended question below spec-work, and while I have some theories, I am utterly unqualified to answer that.

Can you define the moral line that using 99designs crosses? I think it's a perfectly moral agreement between designers, those seeking designs and 99designs itself. If it is immoral to ask someone to produce work with the understanding that they won't get paid if I don't choose it, then we have profoundly different understandings of morality.

99designs most certainly lowers designer wages. That is not an immoral act.

Lowering designer's wages is not an immoral act, of course. Still I would rather say it lowers low-end designers' wages, rather than all.

However, is it immoral to ask someone to work for below minimum wage? I believe so. Apparently the western society agrees, consequently we have laws to protect that. I'd say we do most definitely have two profoundly different concepts of what is moral and what is not.

You were just talking about the distinction between morality and legality, then you justified your position on morals with laws.

I do not believe that it is immoral to offer less than minimum wage for a job. I do not believe that any consensual arrangement between clear-thinking adults is immoral.

Isn't the issue that the designer can choose to work for less than minimal wage or not work. That's a very limited sense of consensual labour.

The exploitation of the global market is available to the commissioner (stackoverflow) in a way that is not available to the designer.

Whilst SO are enjoying a position of wealth wrought in part from the [owners] geographical location they are, here, using the lack of mobility of designers to get a relatively low cost design created. Moreover they are exploiting those who, on the whole, don't have the benefit of their wealth in order to maintain a low cost and at the same time creating a vast inefficiency in the labour performed to produce the design.

So the immorality IMO comes in via exploitation of the low paid, deflation of market price below local [labour] costs (as they are benefiting disproportionately from those high local costs), and purposefully introducing inefficiencies in to production.

You may not find those condition immoral - after all population control by virtue of below-subsistence wage levels is a natural part of a free market; some people seem to find that satisfactory.

If that's what you call immoral, do you only buy goods and services produced by workers making American/Western European-level wages? In the unlikely event that you do, isn't it morally suspect to deny workers in developing countries jobs just to maintain wages?

I'm inclined to think a lot of people who use 99Designs and other such sites do in fact consider and empathize with the designers on the other end, as do you. As you have rightly stated, there is no deception or forced participation. It's a free market.

What I don't think a lot of 99designs customers consider is their impact on the health of the design market. Allow me to illustrate this in the software development world:

...

Imagine you have a potential client that has put out an RFQ. You write up a proposal and submit it. You are not selected, but you learn that the potential client went instead with an offshore company that bid literally one third of your bid. There was no way you would have come close.

You may say "I build quality software. I charge what that's worth." The offshore competitor may write less efficient code that's much harder to maintain – but this client doesn't know, or care. They care that the software meets requirements and was delivered on-time and in-budget.

That's what designers who disagree with 99designs are concerned about – clients that don't understand what they're missing out on when they choose a one-off crowdsourcing instead of a collaborative, iterative process – and a market that comes to accept this as the norm.

Now maybe for a one-off side project, you simply don't need a full design process for a logo. Maybe a client that needs a quick prototype for an app doesn't need the quality codebase you can provide. I'm not against either of these scenarios. I just don't want to see the market for either industry lose track of the value its best talent can provide.

If a logo produced by a single employed designer or firm is better than a logo produced via a 99designs-style contest, then you're going to have to prove it instead of merely claiming that your way is superior. The Stack Overflow logo doesn't seem to be missing some sort of je ne sais quoi that a non-contest logo would have. I'm also happy with my 99designs logo. If I'm hurting my business with such a logo, I'd appreciate some sort of proof.

Otherwise, this seems to be an argument about maintaining designer wages, and I am rightfully not concerned. Everyone wants their wages to go up and the prices they pay to go down.

I'm not claiming your logo is objectively detrimental to your business, just as I wouldn't claim that off-shored software is objectively detrimental to an offshoring client. I've certainly used software developed by a small team in India that did exactly what it needed to.

I don't know what your logo looks like. It might be a great piece of design that connects with your customers and represents your business well. All I'm saying is that a proper design process helps ensure that happens; it's no different from software in that regard.

I see the problem that a site like 99 Designs creates for designers at large, but I don't see how that is everyone else's problem. It's your job (if you are one such designer) to communicate the superiority of your design process to potential customers and no one owes you a well-educated marketplace.

> Allow me to illustrate this in the software development world

You don't need to image it, it already exists: www.freelancer.com, www.guru.com, www.project4hire.com, etc.

> I'm not against either of these scenarios.

Then that's really it, isn't it. 99designs and sites like it have perfectly reasonable use cases.

>> The offshore competitor may write less efficient code that's much harder to maintain – but this client doesn't know, or care. They care that the software meets requirements and was delivered on-time and in-budget.

Everything hinges on that "may", doesn't it? Either the code is worse, or it isn't. If so, the client will suffer for it, and smart companies will learn not to go with the lowest bidder. If not, congrats to the offshore company for outcompeting me.

I think I'm producing high-quality software, but ultimately, I have to prove that in the market. The market is healthy when everyone has maximum freedom about what to produce or provide.

I wouldn't engage in a bidding war to make software because I'm convinced that I don't have to do so in this market. If things change, maybe I'll become desperate enough to do that, or maybe I'll find another line of work. The invisible hand will keep allocating workers as needed.

Here's the difference: as a developer I don't feel the least bit threatened by the existence of spec work. I know that it's not a substitute for what I do.

Designers claim to know this too, but then they get really defensive.

So which is it? Do pro designers really provide value that can't be had through a spec-work site? If yes, then they have nothing to worry about.

The anti-spec-work argument is based on a false dichotomy: the alternative for most of those designers on 99designs is not a pro designer job. It's not getting paid to do any kind of design at all. Work gets done on spec because it's a very low friction way to operate, and if you increase the friction enough these little transactions never happen at all.

> Here's the difference: as a developer I don't feel the least bit threatened by the existence of spec work. I know that it's not a substitute for what I do.

I am unqualified to answer this because I am not the kind of designer 99designs would threaten. What I do is very different and unreplicable in a spec-work environment, so one could almost say I have an unfair advantage.

I agree that if spec work didn't exist, most of those jobs would be produced for free. But the remaining portion would be produced by professional or professional-to-become designers, and that would produce a surplus for the economy, and I'd hazard a guess that the surplus would be larger than what it currently is—but obviously it's just my reasoning, not hard data.

This is sort of like saying Hollywood spec script writing is unethical, when there's a lot of history in such an endeavour, and a well known understanding of the risks associated.

Also, the whole concept of working for a startup is, in a sense, doing work for nothing, hoping that it will pay in the future. Admittedly, equity is a more likely avenue to get paid when you do hit success than pure reputation from spec work, but on the flip side, such successes are much more of a team effort than that of an individual. Having been a leader at more than one failed startup, I don't ever recall anyone in the market having "empathy" for us as we ran out of cash and were laying people off.

I guess I'm saying that arguing this is somehow unethical seems absurdly entitled, whether for designers or developers.

edit: grammar

It's unethical to expect monetary compensation for work?

You're twisting the OP's words. It's not unethical to participate in a work arrangement where the supplier puts in spec work and knows they might not win the contract.

So all the amazing contributions the StackOverflow team and users have contributed to the engineering world are now less-useful because you found out they got their logo from a crowd-sourced platform?

Are you kidding me? If you don't like spec-work crowd-sourced sites, then don't participate, but to try and suggest they are less of a company for using one is over-dramatic bullshit.

> Are you kidding me? If you don't like no-spec crowd-sourced sites, then don't participate, but to try and suggest they are less of a company for using one is utter fucking bullshit.

Please be civil. I am not saying that they are less valuable. I am saying I appreciate them less.

Are you kidding? You use stack overflow to receive free programming support.

Can you explain what the difference is between 99designs crowdsourcing design work and SO crowdsourcing development troubleshooting?

For starters, 99designs is spec-work, and stack overflow isn't. Nobody is making any money from Stack Overflow by contributing.

I wouldn't go as far as saying no one. The quality of ones Stack Overflow answers may result in a better job, similar to how a good portfolio and record on 99designs might result in better opportunities down the track.

Agreed. The glorious irony here is that the age old argument for spec work is that it builds your portfolio- I know that my SO portfolio contributed to landing my current job.

There's a huge difference. 99 Designs works on the premise that only the best should/will survive, a brutal winner takes all system. None of the participants in 99 designs are contributing their efforts as charity... they hope to get paid. While SO is the exact opposite. Contributions made as pure charity with no money changing hands.

Not sure how you could miss the distinction.

Just to clarify - I'm not passing judgement on 99D one way or the other. The people that participate there are free to do so if they think it is the best use of their time.

Have a read of this article:

http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2012/04/feedback-unemp...

There's good reasons to believe that the portfolio that designers develop through 99designs is likely to be worth far more to them than the win itself.

I was simply pointing out the obvious difference between SO and 99D. I'm neither for nor against the 99D way of doing things. I'm sure there are many secondary benefits to be had from participating in these kinds of competitions, not least of which would be improving ones skills and (potential) work prospects.

That was so long ago, I'm pretty sure the (then 3, counting Jeff) developers weren't even getting paid yet. Might still have been running the site on a (single!) box under somebody's desk. Was still a few months til the private beta started.

I'd imagine (since I wasn't around at the time) it was more of a choice between "pay nothing" and this, Stack Overflow had no income until after launching (ads I think were the first thing) and no funding for years after that.

I don't think it's a bad deal for the designers as long as they aren't spending huge amounts of time on each idea. It's probably less effort than I spend on a proposal and I'm not guaranteed to get any work from that.

in my experience the majority of the submissions on 99designs first round are very quick drafts with clip art that probably took the designer 5 minutes. There are some very original ideas mixed in as well too but I'd say at least 75% you can tell are just rough ideas and you can look at artist profiles to see they submit basically a similar logo frequently.

I think the service is interesting because nowhere else can you just get a total brainstorm of so many ideas. Then when you pick one, they get the $350 prize, but they may also pick you up as a client to refine the logo or do more work with the site.

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