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I enjoy working remotely and I hope it lasts, but I have to admit a large part of me does worry that it makes my job easier to outsource. If some sort of contro

I enjoy working remotely and I hope it lasts, but I have to admit a large part of me does worry that it makes my job easier to outsource. If some sort of controls aren't put on companies, I don't know how we can stop massive outsourcing of the white collar jobs, just like what occurred in the manufacturing sector - except with less infrastructure to move.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
All jobs have creative and procedural elements. The procedural elements can be indefinitely outsourced, and eventually automated. The creative parts… well, they're hard to measure. Companies that outsource procedural elements of a job and discard creative elements will slowly fail, unless they have sufficiently-large monopolies that it barely matters what actually goes on inside the company.
thePostFuturist 5y ago
There are language, timezone, and legal (contract and IP enforcement) barriers to completely outsource a core engineering team. Modules, such as QA, however, are up for grabs even today.
noduerme 5y ago
I've spent the last 20 years working remotely, and 10 of them traveling/living in cities, towns and villages in South America, Europe and Asia. I've been happy to see talented locals get better jobs working internationally and boost their incomes. I've never once been concerned with being displaced by some tidal wave of offshore workers. Here's why: * You, as a native English speaker, familiar with American business culture and someone with years of experience in the field are always going to be paid an order of magnitude more than someone just learning the ropes. * You can, if you want, outsource your tasks to other people wherever you are. * You understand that this luck, this privilege, is not going to last forever, because ultimately these jobs will equalize out around the world. And it's right and fair that they should. So you take the advantage you have now and you parlay it into securing something for your future. The inequality between an American who can live like a king on $200k a year working remotely in a village in Brazil, and a local kid who's learning Javascript there and making $1k a month, is going to even itself out. And that's a good thing for efficiency, equality, and the global economy as a whole. All you have to do is be on the right side of it, ride the wave while it lasts, pass on some knowledge, and by the time they're fantastic at taking your job over you'll be 20 years ahead all over again. There's no reason to feel insecure or guilty about it. The global south is not behind America because America is trying to restrict education there. America does plenty of damage to its own educational system, but it needs skilled workers abroad. The global south is behind America because it hasn't fully shifted from economies of community to economies of scale. That's a multi-generational change. Not to be blunt, but it's plenty of time to become an owner rather than a worker.
krageon 5y ago
Outsourcing for knowledge jobs is currently a giant pile of disasters (as in, not one time have I seen folks happy with the result). Given that this is the case, I wouldn't worry too much about outsourcing as a general trend.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

All jobs have creative and procedural elements. The procedural elements can be indefinitely outsourced, and eventually automated. The creative parts… well, they're hard to measure. Companies that outsource procedural elements of a job and discard creative elements will slowly fail, unless they have sufficiently-large monopolies that it barely matters what actually goes on inside the company.

thePostFuturist 5y ago

There are language, timezone, and legal (contract and IP enforcement) barriers to completely outsource a core engineering team. Modules, such as QA, however, are up for grabs even today.

noduerme 5y ago

I've spent the last 20 years working remotely, and 10 of them traveling/living in cities, towns and villages in South America, Europe and Asia. I've been happy to see talented locals get better jobs working internationally and boost their incomes. I've never once been concerned with being displaced by some tidal wave of offshore workers. Here's why: * You, as a native English speaker, familiar with American business culture and someone with years of experience in the field are always going to be paid an order of magnitude more than someone just learning the ropes. * You can, if you want, outsource your tasks to other people wherever you are. * You understand that this luck, this privilege, is not going to last forever, because ultimately these jobs will equalize out around the world. And it's right and fair that they should. So you take the advantage you have now and you parlay it into securing something for your future. The inequality between an American who can live like a king on $200k a year working remotely in a village in Brazil, and a local kid who's learning Javascript there and making $1k a month, is going to even itself out. And that's a good thing for efficiency, equality, and the global economy as a whole. All you have to do is be on the right side of it, ride the wave while it lasts, pass on some knowledge, and by the time they're fantastic at taking your job over you'll be 20 years ahead all over again. There's no reason to feel insecure or guilty about it. The global south is not behind America because America is trying to restrict education there. America does plenty of damage to its own educational system, but it needs skilled workers abroad. The global south is behind America because it hasn't fully shifted from economies of community to economies of scale. That's a multi-generational change. Not to be blunt, but it's plenty of time to become an owner rather than a worker.

krageon 5y ago

Outsourcing for knowledge jobs is currently a giant pile of disasters (as in, not one time have I seen folks happy with the result). Given that this is the case, I wouldn't worry too much about outsourcing as a general trend.