I think the underlying, unstated point - that the industry is disrupted - holds, but misses out on a bigger, more interesting point: There is a huge need and op

I think the underlying, unstated point - that the industry is disrupted - holds, but misses out on a bigger, more interesting point: There is a huge need and opportunity to help craft the total experience, and those skills are costly and go way beyond what you can get at the budget freelance sites. I can guarantee you that neither Foursquare nor Zappos used a $500 stock or contest design, and I'd bet even money that MyTown, so deeply derided, spent more on design and art than either of those (not including salaried employees). There's been undercutting forces in design for years. A decade ago a penny-pinching retailer picked a punk high school kid to do his website (disclosure: I was the kid) to save a few bucks and got a servicable if uneven product. Today he'd do 99designs and get the same. Real designers learn how to create, communicate and sell their value in tangible ways.