Hackathons Are Dystopian Events That Dupe People Into Working For Free, Say Sociologists (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader writes: That's the conclusion that two sociologists came to after observing seven hackathons over the period of one year, reports Wired. In "Hackathons As Co-optation Ritual: Socializing Workers and Institutionalizing Innovation in the 'New' Economy," sociologists Sharon Zukin and Max Papadantonakis argue that companies use the allure of hackathons to get people to work for free. They says sponsors fuel the "romance of digital innovation by appealing to the hackers' aspiration to be multi-dimensional agents of change" when in fact the hackathons are just a means of labor control.

Comments

Original article is here

[XXongo]

For some reason the summary linked a news article ABOUT the Wired article, not the Wired article:
https://www.wired.com/story/sociologists-examine-hackathons-and-see-exploitation/amp

nor the actual paper being discussed:
https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S0277-283320170000031005

hackathons run by private individuals

[rsilvergun]

aren't what's being called out in the article. It's ones being run by businesses. I've been lucky enough to have a pretty solid career trajectory. But several of my buddies have been stuck applying everywhere under the sun. One of the most common tricks they've all seen is when they 'test' you to solve this one problem and you do and never get a call back. The huge number of unemployed and underemployed techs (thanks, H1-B program!) mean companies can do this pretty much indefinitely. A lot of company run hackathons are just that.

If you'll allow me to indulge in a bit of "Back in my day", companies used to do these things during working hours. It was part of your ongoing training. For those of you too young to know what that is, training is what companies did before they could go running to Congress to bring in as much cheap labor as they want.