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Meanwhile, somewhere in Western Europe, someone gets made redundant.

• lgieron 13y ago
  Not necessarily, some of the projects outsourced at third world rates only exist because the rates are so low. For example, I have a friend who toyed with the idea of making money in the app store - it costed him only about $100 to have a simple app done by an Indian developer, which was acceptable for him; I'm pretty sure having to spend 5-10x more for a western developer would be too much of a risk for him. As for the cases where people in the west are actually made redundant - the west has ruthlessly exploited its colonies for a couple centuries and now, thanks to free trade, it is allowing for some balancing in the global economy, which means both poor countries getting richer and some people in rich countries being worse off. I'd say that in the grand scale of things it's justice, and long overdue.
  • SuddsMcDuff 13y ago
    I find myself quite conflicted as I agree with everything you say, but I am also one of the unfortunate people who's career is suffering due to rampant off-shoring.
    • lgieron 13y ago
      I agree, irregardless of the big picture, that is always sad on an individual level. BTW I think the way to at least partially combat outsourcing in rich countries is through agreeing to work for lower wages (which would still be higher than national average, I'm not advocating becoming working poor). Arguably, that's what's already happening, and that's one of the reasons why programmers don't earn nearly as much as some of the other professionals.
    • eru 13y ago
      I assume you are in computing / programming? There are loads of jobs available at good salaries world wide. So don't worry about losing your current one.
• eru 13y ago
  So what?