I agree with the author's overall thrust: that the new Skype UI for Mac is horrid and that a large company with lots of cash should generally pay quality, full-

I agree with the author's overall thrust: that the new Skype UI for Mac is horrid and that a large company with lots of cash should generally pay quality, full-time designers who can spend a lot of time understanding the product and producing an interface that gels with the user. What I do take issue with (Edit: and what it seems that others have taken issue with since I started writing this reply) is the following sentiment: > "Such Design competitions are a disguised form of crowdsourcing, and are extremely insulting to the design profession." Aside from the point that there's nothing 'disguised' about this being a crowdsourcing exercise, I've seen the similar view asserted around the place that designers should somehow be exempt from market forces. If you can't compete on price (which you can't if that price is free), then do what most of the designers that complain about this stuff can (or at least should be able to) compete on - quality and experience.