4 ms·

I agree that it's harmful to society to create "marketplaces" where workers are more free to undercut each other on price. Everywhere in nature and history, arm

I agree that it's harmful to society to create "marketplaces" where workers are more free to undercut each other on price. Everywhere in nature and history, arms races are "fair" but they waste resources, so society should focus on creating and enforcing rules against arms races.

JadeNB 12y ago
I'm not sure that I agree with this point of view—in fact, I have a suspicion that it's sarcastic—but it seems like a constructive contribution to the discussion whether or not you agree with it. Why the downvotes? (I am not the poster.)
atom-morgan 12y ago
> I agree that it's harmful to society to create "marketplaces" where workers are more free to undercut each other on price. Wouldn't designer/developer freelancers fall under this category?
- smacktoward 12y ago
  Not necessarily, as within traditional means of winning business many of them compete very successfully on other merits, such as quality of work, reputation or knowledge of a particular domain/sector. It's only when you build an online marketplace that this kind of race to the bottom emerges, because the vast majority of participants on both sides will be completely unknown to each other. So the few objective signals the marketplace offers, like price, become the only means available for party A to evaluate party B. It's possible to imagine a sort of eBay-style reputation system offsetting this; but only in part, because by definition the people who will be competing in a blind marketplace are the ones who have the least reputational capital. (If they had a reputation, they'd be using it to get clients, not bidding on lowest-common-denominator work.) So the best guarantee that would offer would be that the person/company you're looking at is the "best of the worst," so to speak.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    > It's only when you build an online marketplace that this kind of race to the bottom emerges, because the vast majority of participants on both sides will be completely unknown to each other. So the few objective signals the marketplace offers, like price, become the only means available for party A to evaluate party B. Except that creative freelancers usually post some sort of online portfolio, which seems like an extremely fair thing to judge a candidate by, all things considered.
humanrebar 12y ago
How do you distinguish between healthy price competition on one hand and "undercut[ing]" and "arms races" on the other?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

JadeNB 12y ago

I'm not sure that I agree with this point of view—in fact, I have a suspicion that it's sarcastic—but it seems like a constructive contribution to the discussion whether or not you agree with it. Why the downvotes? (I am not the poster.)

atom-morgan 12y ago

> I agree that it's harmful to society to create "marketplaces" where workers are more free to undercut each other on price. Wouldn't designer/developer freelancers fall under this category?

smacktoward 12y ago
Not necessarily, as within traditional means of winning business many of them compete very successfully on other merits, such as quality of work, reputation or knowledge of a particular domain/sector. It's only when you build an online marketplace that this kind of race to the bottom emerges, because the vast majority of participants on both sides will be completely unknown to each other. So the few objective signals the marketplace offers, like price, become the only means available for party A to evaluate party B. It's possible to imagine a sort of eBay-style reputation system offsetting this; but only in part, because by definition the people who will be competing in a blind marketplace are the ones who have the least reputational capital. (If they had a reputation, they'd be using it to get clients, not bidding on lowest-common-denominator work.) So the best guarantee that would offer would be that the person/company you're looking at is the "best of the worst," so to speak.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  > It's only when you build an online marketplace that this kind of race to the bottom emerges, because the vast majority of participants on both sides will be completely unknown to each other. So the few objective signals the marketplace offers, like price, become the only means available for party A to evaluate party B. Except that creative freelancers usually post some sort of online portfolio, which seems like an extremely fair thing to judge a candidate by, all things considered.

humanrebar 12y ago

How do you distinguish between healthy price competition on one hand and "undercut[ing]" and "arms races" on the other?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]