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

Re:Socialists or sociologists?

[Penguinisto]

I can't find a PDF copy or free access to the full text of the publication so I can't speak to its quality, but with quotes like "romance of digital innovation by appealing to the hackers' aspiration to be multi-dimensional agents of change" I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same kind of flowery shit that Sokal made fun of over two decades ago.

What's even funnier is that I don't think that "labor control" (understood as forcing more labor out of someone in a short period of time) is as important as the desire for 'intellectual farming', wherein hackers spew out original ideas, processes, and code, and corporations (and/or sponsors) immediately take possession of that freshly brewed intellectual property, immediately locking it down as theirs.