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Many hackatons are organized around the host company's business goals. They are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both)

Many hackatons are organized around the host company's business goals. They are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both) I love coding and do code a lot in my own time. But I'm not gonna work for free for some company or government (it's your solutions to their problems) just because they market an event as a hackaton. There might be better events out there but this is my experience.

throwayawnotime 9y ago
Word! Work for free day and night for a whole weekend and give out the IP for the meager pay of some buffet lunch and maybe a tshirt. Are programmers that cheap?
shoo 9y ago
> hey are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both) yeah, i'd argue that in many cases the original meaning of the term "hack" has been co-opted by capitalism these days i mentally find/replace "hack" with "work", for amusing but arguably far more accurate results: e.g. do i want to go along to a 24-hour workathon for the possibility to win prizes or whatever? nope.
tiku 9y ago
Yeah, that is why i don't attend. There is always a motive from a company behind it.. If i just wanna screw around with code it's better to do that from home, with friends, or on lan's imho.
zelos 9y ago
Is cheap labour really a consideration? Are companies seriously basing products off code written at hackathons?
- richardknop 9y ago
  They don't base products off them but it is useful as quick prototyping / hacking together some minimalistic MVPs. Outside of hackaton they would have to actually pay developers to do this sort of prototyping / hacking work but they can get it for free in hackatons. It's obviously not a major thing but it still irks me, especially when hackatons are over the weekend when you would normally charge double of normal rate for overtime if it was a part of normal work and you agreed to do it for some reason (meeting deadline etc).
- nannal 9y ago
  The some of the shit that goes to prod man.

throwayawnotime 9y ago

Word! Work for free day and night for a whole weekend and give out the IP for the meager pay of some buffet lunch and maybe a tshirt. Are programmers that cheap?

shoo 9y ago

> hey are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both) yeah, i'd argue that in many cases the original meaning of the term "hack" has been co-opted by capitalism these days i mentally find/replace "hack" with "work", for amusing but arguably far more accurate results: e.g. do i want to go along to a 24-hour workathon for the possibility to win prizes or whatever? nope.

tiku 9y ago

Yeah, that is why i don't attend. There is always a motive from a company behind it.. If i just wanna screw around with code it's better to do that from home, with friends, or on lan's imho.

zelos 9y ago

Is cheap labour really a consideration? Are companies seriously basing products off code written at hackathons?

richardknop 9y ago
They don't base products off them but it is useful as quick prototyping / hacking together some minimalistic MVPs. Outside of hackaton they would have to actually pay developers to do this sort of prototyping / hacking work but they can get it for free in hackatons. It's obviously not a major thing but it still irks me, especially when hackatons are over the weekend when you would normally charge double of normal rate for overtime if it was a part of normal work and you agreed to do it for some reason (meeting deadline etc).
nannal 9y ago
The some of the shit that goes to prod man.