Open Source vs. Wall Street Bonuses

tcd004 sends in a piece from PBS NewsHour on money and what actually motivates people. "What best motivates the workforce? More money? Fame? New studies reveal that beyond a certain threshold, large financial rewards can actually become a drag on performance in the workplace. Reporter Paul Solman compares million-dollar Wall Street bonuses to the rewards earned by the labor force behind the open source community."

Comments

Real world already knows this

[ender06]

Who would've imagined that knowing you'd get a huge bonus anyway would make you work less/not as hard? The rest of us in the real world already know this.

Re:Real world already knows this

[Bert64]

However, bonus schemes in many cases are inherently flawed and encourage people to cut corners or do their job in a known inefficient way in order to maximize the bonus.

Look at traffic wardens who are supposed to be enforcing parking regulations, but are rewarded based on the number of tickets issued. So now it becomes in their interest to maximize the amount of regulation breaking so they can hand out tickets.
Some police forces are rewarded based on number of arrests, so its in their interest to make no effort to prevent crime, wait for crimes to be committed and then arrest all the petty criminals who are a much easier target than serious or organized criminals.

Re:Real world already knows this

[Rhaban]

As a developer, I see everyday that when someone is asked to do something with a tight deadline, it usually takes more time than if there's no deadline or a large one.

When someone thinks there's no time to perform a task, they try to cut on "useless" parts like planning, modeling... and they try to begin "productive" work right away.

The result is often that a lot of work has to be redone, and the global task ends up taking more time.

Re:people who do less useful work earn more

[LKM]

Similarly, in my experience, the people who end up in the highest-paying jobs are usually not the most productive or useful workers at a company, but simply the most sociopathic ones. Instead of helping others and improving the system, they optimized for their own success.

Apples and Oranges

[sco08y]

How are the things executives do and the things open source developers do even remotely comparable?

This whole thing is just a bunch of wankers saying how awful business people are because they get paid well.

You know, fine, it's a standard trope at PBS. But at the same time, these wankers are saying I'm perfectly happy being underpaid. Well, fuck you very much, no I'm not, and you don't need to be pontificating on how much I should be paid. I think I can represent myself to potential clients just fine without your help, ta much.

Re:people who do less useful work earn more

[Hognoxious]

In fact, people who do less useful work in society do earn more money.

Some people who earn a lot don't do anything useful (though what's useful is somewhat subjective anyway).

However generalizing that to a universal law is a bit of a stretch.

You don't have to pay people who have intrinsic motivation to do something as much as you need to pay people for whom the money are the motivation.

You appear to assume a person can only be motivated by one thing at a time. I'd say, at the risk of getting too technical, that's it's a load of bollocks.

Re:people who do less useful work earn more

[einar2]

In fact, --- this is just your opinion. There is a lot of work outside of your personal experience which might appear less useful to you because you have not thought about it yet. This is ok. Nobody knows about everything. The limitation of your viewpoint does not set a standard and should not let you judge other people's work.

There are several jobs I would consider useful for society where it would be difficult to come up with "intrinsic motivation" (my opinion). For myself, I conclude that equaling the glamor of a job with its usefulness is highly flawed.