Actually, 75% of Americans in public schools graduate high school in 4 years. I think it's you who has no clue about the average American.
It also sounds to me like you got duped by the private college marketing machine into thinking an expensive college education will give you some sort of advantage. Actually, it just gives you student loans. I got a job and put myself through state school, and it's been pretty good for me.
Lastly, that victim complex will be the anchor that holds you back. You heard it here first. Get yourself an attitude adjustment, but quick.
Now you see why I have such difficulty finding good people? You've probably got a good head on your shoulders, but I couldn't put you in front of a client because of that attitude problem.
Actually, they all claimed to have started two successful "businesses" so far too.
Well, I don't know or care who or what you are talking about. Back in the.com bust, my employer was failing and that, in turn, was stunting my career. I started a software architecture and design consultancy. For whatever reason, I refuse to discuss numbers with people, and that includes on line, but I will divulge that that business earns enough profits that President Obama believes I need my taxes increased.
Back in 2004, I started another business purchasing residential real estate and renting it out. This was mostly for tax reasons. That business throws off passive income, and it also adds to my net worth as my residents pay down my mortgages.
I've decided that I'm going to focus much more attention on real estate next year. I'm not sure if it will make more money than the software firm, but I do know one thing: the software firm is hard to grow because I can't find enough quality people. Much easier to find quality properties than quality people.
irregardless, if you don't rely on your savings you are relying on capital, which banks monopolize, and they discriminate against those who have nothing to begin with, especially those who can't even afford college to get a business degree in addition to a useful field. Either way, if you aren't born with a silver spoon, you are shit out of luck 99% of the time.
Really, that's just not true. If you actually have a solid business plan and you just can't get funded because of "discriminating" banks, ping me back and I'd be happy to suggest some funding ideas.
Also, how do you grow? You sell products, and make money which you then reinvest into yourself. That is how business has worked since the beginning of time last time I checked.
Interesting, but false. Do you really think most successful businesses finance large capital investments from cash on hand? Even if a business wanted to do this (it usually makes zero sense), the tax code greatly favors financing through debt.
And anyway, what happens if you are a small manufacturer and you get a huge order. If you finance your business from savings or cash flow, how are you going to purchase raw materials and pay production costs if you don't get paid from your customer until 30 days after delivery of the finished goods?
A good friend of mine actually faces this very problem. She began a jewelry manufacturing business out of savings and cash flow from her husband's full-time job. Right now, her business has grown to the point that they have tapped out their ability to finance from cash-flow. She could grow slowly, but businesses that can grow rapidly tend to actually survive.
She has a bank line of credit now, but if she gets an order that exceeds her LOC, she's screwed. She'd have to turn it away because she can't ramp up quickly enough. She's starting to get larger orders, so this is a real concern. I hooked her up with a factoring firm that can grow with her in ways that a bank cannot. Problem solved.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that banks aren't the last word in financing. Seems like every industry has its own specialized source of funds when banks don't get the job done. In manufacturing, its factoring. In real estate, it's private finance and hard money.
My software firm, I started off the side of my desk with essentially zero capital. I think the whole "it takes money to make money" canard was invented to keep workers as workers.
I am not stalking you. You are flattering yourself.
If you start a capital-intensive business with your own savings as your sole source of funds, you're doing it wrong. Even if you have enough to get started, how do you intend to grow your business that way?
I've started two successful businesses, so far. You probably have me confused with a different dumb-ass.
I can assure you that my boss feels the same way about me. I own the company.
And I don't know the meaning of "not enough jobs to go around." You can always make your own.
That's what I did during the.com bust when there were "not enough jobs to go around," and I wasn't happy with how things were going as a full-time employee.
I'm in the USA, and I get 0 days of paid vacation.
But that doesn't stop me from taking vacation. I take 1 or 2 week-long ski trips every winter, another week or so out west in the summer. A few short holidays here and there. A day off or two for weddings, birthdays, or other special occasions. Probably about 25 days total, all unpaid.
You find the distributors though the customers. People who download child porn give distributor of child porn Satisfaction which is just another kind of payment.
I'm very interested in this new form of currency you just invented. I feel like Satisfaction might be easier to accumulate than more traditional kinds of payment, such as Federal Reserve Notes (i.e. dollars).
For fun, I am going to walk over to the corner market and attempt to procure a container of milk in exchange for "Satisfaction which is just another kind of payment." I'll explain to the checkout clerk just how Satisfied that milk will make me due to the nourishment that it will provide me, and how it will completely sate my thirst.
I'm really excited to try this, because I think I could self-produce a nearly limitless supply Satisfaction. If this experiment succeeds, I may never have to work another day in my life!
Every so often some 11 year old white girl escapes from a basement in Florida or something telling a tale of having been kidnapped and trafficked through Mexico.
Can you provide some type of citation for that? Because I don't believe you. Why would a kidnapper transport an "11 year old white girl" to Florida by way of Mexico? That just doesn't even make any sense.
Where the fuck did you think all those missing children go? They don't all become movie stars.
Honestly, I don't have any idea (and clearly neither do you), so I consulted the National Crime Information Center.
It turns out that in 2007, 518 children were abducted by strangers vs. 2,919 abducted by a non-custodial parent. It would appear that those missing children tend to go with one of their parents. I would tend to agree with your assertion that they don't all become movie stars.
Surprisingly, the National Crime Information Center did not break out statistics on 11 year old white girls abducted by strangers, trafficked to Mexico just to make it sound really scary, trafficked back in to the United States, only to wind up in a Florida basement being forced to make sex films which will be distributed free of charge via Usenet. I was really hoping to see that one, but maybe the number was just so small that it wasn't worth breaking it out.
As a point of fact, in case you're interested in such things, most homes in Florida lack a basement. Something about being below the water table and prone to flooding or something like that.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like you actually don't know what you are talking about at all and are just making things up and posting them as through they were true. That's pretty funny, I guess.
As they increase sales volume they will negotiate a lower price for the batteries and other specialized components, which can be made more cheaply because those manufacturers are seeing higher volumes.
Not necessarily true. It depends on why the price of the batteries is high (which I have not bothered to research because I do not care that much).
If the high prices are due to lack of economies of scale, as you suggest, then price may decrease as production volume increases.
However, if the high price is due to scarce raw materials, increasing production volume will cause prices to skyrocket as the scarce raw material supply is depleted.
amazon did not boot wikileaks for high load - they actually charge per usage, so it's not really a problem to them in terms of money
Amazon charges for usage in arrears (i.e. after the resource is consumed). That means AWS is extending credit to all of their customers. When businesses extend credit, there are always credit limits in order to limit potential credit losses.
Now I don't work for AWS, and I have no knowledge of the specifics of this case, but if I had a brand new customer run up a massive bill with no prior payment history, I'd cut his ass off.
Again, not saying that's what AWS did here, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities.
business should not be entitled to change their minds at will like that. Contract drafting is already biased for them as it is.
It's already written into the AWS contract when AWS can cut off a customer. These clauses tend to be pretty broad (I haven't read AWS's), and I'd be shocked if hosting government classified information that was getting actively DDOSed didn't give AWS cause to terminate.
To my knowledge, AWS hasn't released a statement on why they terminated WikiLeaks, but I'm guessing that they were within their legal rights to do so.
Yes, you can definitely do it, but no, you will probably not be happy with the quality. As of the last time I looked at Asterisk, a finer-grained real time clock was required for optimal performance. That could either be via the Digium hardware (which you wouldn't have on a VPS) or a RTC/ztdummy/?? module compiled into the kernel, which you most likely don't control.
Why would I pay $229 for a Boxee when I can pay just an extra $30 more and get a Dell Zino which is a full powered PC that will not only run Boxee but anything else I might need (VLC, XBMC, Flash,...)
You can get it for $199 on Amazon, and I just priced out a base Zino configuration for $292.94 including tax/shipping. That's a difference of $92.95.
I don't want to listen to a hard drive whirring.
I do want an actual remote control, not a wireless keyboard (which by the way costs extra).
Let's say you want the thing to just work and work out of the box and have the remote work out of the box and not have to tinker with it just to watch TV?
Maybe you want to make sure your hardware is always supported. Boxee software and Boxee hardware.
I for one want to see more devices that stay 100% out-of-the-fucking-way. Let me hide it in a low profile cabinet. Let me mount it BEHIND my TV if I want. I bought the TV to look at the TV... I bought your device, TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE TV. Sigh.
The Boxee Box uses an RF remote. Feel free to hide the box behind the TV if that's your preference.
IDG News: Going back, what was the one step he could have done to avoid prison? Chilton: If he would have simply said, "I will create you an account and you can go in and you can remove my access if you want." If he had created access for someone else, I think that would have resolved it. If he had not decided to leave and go to Nevada a few days later and withdraw US$10,000 in cash, [Childs did this the day before his arrest, while under police surveillance] I think the police may have let it continue on as an employment issue and not a criminal matter.
High-end design is an extremely intricate, time consuming process that you really have to put your heart into. Rather than a proper design process with one on one consultation, concept development, drafting, etc the entrants have to create a design based on a short project summary in hopes that theirs will get picked.
For small business owners like me, we don't need perfect, and we certainly aren't going to pay you $10k for perfect.
What we need is "doesn't look like it was done by a 3rd grader". By your standards, it may be crap. But by my standards, it's exactly what I need at a price point that makes sense.
This is why it's important for designers, like anyone in any profession, to provide more value than just design. A lot of people can produce good design. Not everyone can apply real substance to their work, a real understanding of the client, the audience, strategy and implementation. Of course, the trick is being able to convince potential clients of your value.
I think this is pretty much the crux of it, and it's precisely why there is room for both traditional designers and the crowdsourcers in this world.
I own a small business, and there is no way in hell I'm paying $10k for a logo. I'll never get $10k worth of value out of it, so it's just not happening. I am never, ever going to be your client, so you don't care about me.
On the other hand, I still need a logo. I could do it myself and have it look like a 3rd grader did it, or I could use some type of cut-rate designer or crowdsorcer do it and have it look like a college student did it. None of this you should care about, because like I said before, I was never going to hire you to begin with.
Rent-a-coder has been around for years. I don't think it's hurt the software development business at all.
In fact, it's opened up a new market for custom dev work. The people offering up projects on RAC are people who would have just bought a COTS solution before. In other words, if you're a hotshot software dev who is the best integrator since sliced bread, realized these RAC customers were never going to be your clients. Nothing has changed for you.
99designs is never going to be doing logos for a major campaign for a major business. They are not your competitors. The people using them are tiny business owners like me, who were never going to buy your $10k logo, anyway.
You joke, but most businesses rely on their ability to project sober professionalism and seriousness. People who don't understand that Comic Sans (I know, I just font-Godwinned myself here) deteriorates that image of professionalism rather than merely communicating "informal" or "fun" (often when neither is even appropriate in the first place) shouldn't be designing anything that represents their company.
That's the beauty of crowdsourced design, from the customer's perspective.
As a business owner, I can tell you right now that creatives I produce look like they were done by 3rd grader. And with logos at $5k a pop, too bad. 3rd grader it is.
But despite the fact that I can't produce a good creative, I know one when I see it. If you throw 10 or 20 logos on my desk, I can pick the one that best fits my business. So for a guy like me, 99designs is nothing short of pure awesome.
But my needs are meager. I just need something that looks like it was designed by a college student instead of a 3rd grader.
And let me ask you something, do you think the AA logo was done in 10 minutes? twitter's? facebook's?
I do not care. I am not AA or twitter or facebook.
I own a real estate investing group, and all I need is a logo that looks like it was done by a college student instead of a 3rd grader. 99designs is perfect for me.
Traditional designers have lost nothing. I was never going to pay $5k or $10k for a logo. It never held that much value for my business.
I don't think the problem is that professional designers charge too much. They can unlock a ton of value and be worth their weight in gold. How much do you think the deceptively-simple Nike swoosh logo brought in for the company?
But the fact is not every business is in a position to have a logo be worth millions or billions of dollars. For a small business like mine, there is simply no way for me to justify spending $10,000.00 (or whatever a pro designer would charge these days) on a logo. But I am exactly the target market 99designs!
In the old days, small business owners like me would make our own shitty logos or call in a favor from a family member or a friend*. When I make a logo, it looks like it was done by a 3rd grader, and I recognize this, but I'm still not shelling out 5 figures for a goddamn logo to put on my letterhead and website.
On the other hand, shelling out $250 for a bunch of logos and I get to pick out the best one? That's perfect for me! I can do a logo for each apartment building, even.
But the traditional designers should be whining about 99designs and customers like me. Earth to traditional designers: you were never getting my business in the first place. You have lost nothing here.
* Total side note, I've never understood the general slashdot disdain with helping family members with their computers. I love helping family fix their computers, and I don't even know what the hell I'm doing (I have a degree in CS and worked for about a decade as an enterprise architect... I've never fixed a computer professionally in my life... in fact, the only people's computers I ever fix are my family's). Want to know why?
My father has 30+ years experience as a corporate attorney. Guess who I call whenever I am negotiating a deal? Yeah, that's right, the guy who does multi-billion dollar deals over breakfast. And if he ever has any question about computers or gadgets or anything with a transistor in it, I'm on it right away.
My uncle has 30+ years experience as a Neurologist. My wife has Multiple Sclerosis. Guess who we call whenever we have any question or need help with anything relating to her health and need an unbiased opinion? That's right. He frickin' analyzes every one of her MRIs for free because he cares so much. And whenever he has any remotely technical question, guess who is right there for him? Oh, and he recently had his identity stolen. My wife used to do credit policy for a large national bank. Guess who guided him through the process on untangling that mess?
The list goes on and on. The point being, help you family out. When the day comes that you need help, you'll be glad you did. And by "you", I mean "slashdot readers". Not the dude I was replying to, specifically. I have no idea how he treats his family.
Most people cannot consciously distinguish between visuals that have those properties and those that do not, so when the client simply chooses from a large pool of designs there is no telling if the graphic is actually any good.
I would tend to disagree with this. I think most people couldn't create a design that have those properties, but most people know it when they see it.
But, yeah, I agree that it takes a lot to create the optimal creative. I have a degree in Computer Science, so I could read the relevant specs (HTML, CSS, JS, whatever else) and understand them better than my web designer can, but I've tried designing websites before and I can recognize right away that my best efforts simply suck monkey balls. They are just spectacularly awful, and I couldn't tell you why, but I know rotten when I see it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, 75% of Americans in public schools graduate high school in 4 years. I think it's you who has no clue about the average American.
It also sounds to me like you got duped by the private college marketing machine into thinking an expensive college education will give you some sort of advantage. Actually, it just gives you student loans. I got a job and put myself through state school, and it's been pretty good for me.
Lastly, that victim complex will be the anchor that holds you back. You heard it here first. Get yourself an attitude adjustment, but quick.
Now you see why I have such difficulty finding good people? You've probably got a good head on your shoulders, but I couldn't put you in front of a client because of that attitude problem.
Actually, they all claimed to have started two successful "businesses" so far too.
Well, I don't know or care who or what you are talking about. Back in the .com bust, my employer was failing and that, in turn, was stunting my career. I started a software architecture and design consultancy. For whatever reason, I refuse to discuss numbers with people, and that includes on line, but I will divulge that that business earns enough profits that President Obama believes I need my taxes increased.
Back in 2004, I started another business purchasing residential real estate and renting it out. This was mostly for tax reasons. That business throws off passive income, and it also adds to my net worth as my residents pay down my mortgages.
I've decided that I'm going to focus much more attention on real estate next year. I'm not sure if it will make more money than the software firm, but I do know one thing: the software firm is hard to grow because I can't find enough quality people. Much easier to find quality properties than quality people.
irregardless, if you don't rely on your savings you are relying on capital, which banks monopolize, and they discriminate against those who have nothing to begin with, especially those who can't even afford college to get a business degree in addition to a useful field. Either way, if you aren't born with a silver spoon, you are shit out of luck 99% of the time.
Really, that's just not true. If you actually have a solid business plan and you just can't get funded because of "discriminating" banks, ping me back and I'd be happy to suggest some funding ideas.
Also, how do you grow? You sell products, and make money which you then reinvest into yourself. That is how business has worked since the beginning of time last time I checked.
Interesting, but false. Do you really think most successful businesses finance large capital investments from cash on hand? Even if a business wanted to do this (it usually makes zero sense), the tax code greatly favors financing through debt.
And anyway, what happens if you are a small manufacturer and you get a huge order. If you finance your business from savings or cash flow, how are you going to purchase raw materials and pay production costs if you don't get paid from your customer until 30 days after delivery of the finished goods?
A good friend of mine actually faces this very problem. She began a jewelry manufacturing business out of savings and cash flow from her husband's full-time job. Right now, her business has grown to the point that they have tapped out their ability to finance from cash-flow. She could grow slowly, but businesses that can grow rapidly tend to actually survive.
She has a bank line of credit now, but if she gets an order that exceeds her LOC, she's screwed. She'd have to turn it away because she can't ramp up quickly enough. She's starting to get larger orders, so this is a real concern. I hooked her up with a factoring firm that can grow with her in ways that a bank cannot. Problem solved.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that banks aren't the last word in financing. Seems like every industry has its own specialized source of funds when banks don't get the job done. In manufacturing, its factoring. In real estate, it's private finance and hard money.
My software firm, I started off the side of my desk with essentially zero capital. I think the whole "it takes money to make money" canard was invented to keep workers as workers.
I am not stalking you. You are flattering yourself.
If you start a capital-intensive business with your own savings as your sole source of funds, you're doing it wrong. Even if you have enough to get started, how do you intend to grow your business that way?
I've started two successful businesses, so far. You probably have me confused with a different dumb-ass.
I can assure you that my boss feels the same way about me. I own the company.
And I don't know the meaning of "not enough jobs to go around." You can always make your own.
That's what I did during the .com bust when there were "not enough jobs to go around," and I wasn't happy with how things were going as a full-time employee.
Well, maybe those people should find more flexible work environments.
I don't get fired for taking unpaid time of, and this is despite my boss being a total jackass.
I'm in the USA, and I get 0 days of paid vacation.
But that doesn't stop me from taking vacation. I take 1 or 2 week-long ski trips every winter, another week or so out west in the summer. A few short holidays here and there. A day off or two for weddings, birthdays, or other special occasions. Probably about 25 days total, all unpaid.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the situation.
You can still take vacation, even when you don't get paid time off. I don't get any paid time off, but I take as much vacation as I want.
You find the distributors though the customers. People who download child porn give distributor of child porn Satisfaction which is just another kind of payment.
I'm very interested in this new form of currency you just invented. I feel like Satisfaction might be easier to accumulate than more traditional kinds of payment, such as Federal Reserve Notes (i.e. dollars).
For fun, I am going to walk over to the corner market and attempt to procure a container of milk in exchange for "Satisfaction which is just another kind of payment." I'll explain to the checkout clerk just how Satisfied that milk will make me due to the nourishment that it will provide me, and how it will completely sate my thirst.
I'm really excited to try this, because I think I could self-produce a nearly limitless supply Satisfaction. If this experiment succeeds, I may never have to work another day in my life!
Every so often some 11 year old white girl escapes from a basement in Florida or something telling a tale of having been kidnapped and trafficked through Mexico.
Can you provide some type of citation for that? Because I don't believe you. Why would a kidnapper transport an "11 year old white girl" to Florida by way of Mexico? That just doesn't even make any sense.
Where the fuck did you think all those missing children go? They don't all become movie stars.
Honestly, I don't have any idea (and clearly neither do you), so I consulted the National Crime Information Center.
It turns out that in 2007, 518 children were abducted by strangers vs. 2,919 abducted by a non-custodial parent. It would appear that those missing children tend to go with one of their parents. I would tend to agree with your assertion that they don't all become movie stars.
Surprisingly, the National Crime Information Center did not break out statistics on 11 year old white girls abducted by strangers, trafficked to Mexico just to make it sound really scary, trafficked back in to the United States, only to wind up in a Florida basement being forced to make sex films which will be distributed free of charge via Usenet. I was really hoping to see that one, but maybe the number was just so small that it wasn't worth breaking it out.
As a point of fact, in case you're interested in such things, most homes in Florida lack a basement. Something about being below the water table and prone to flooding or something like that.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like you actually don't know what you are talking about at all and are just making things up and posting them as through they were true. That's pretty funny, I guess.
As they increase sales volume they will negotiate a lower price for the batteries and other specialized components, which can be made more cheaply because those manufacturers are seeing higher volumes.
Not necessarily true. It depends on why the price of the batteries is high (which I have not bothered to research because I do not care that much).
If the high prices are due to lack of economies of scale, as you suggest, then price may decrease as production volume increases.
However, if the high price is due to scarce raw materials, increasing production volume will cause prices to skyrocket as the scarce raw material supply is depleted.
amazon did not boot wikileaks for high load - they actually charge per usage, so it's not really a problem to them in terms of money
Amazon charges for usage in arrears (i.e. after the resource is consumed). That means AWS is extending credit to all of their customers. When businesses extend credit, there are always credit limits in order to limit potential credit losses.
Now I don't work for AWS, and I have no knowledge of the specifics of this case, but if I had a brand new customer run up a massive bill with no prior payment history, I'd cut his ass off.
Again, not saying that's what AWS did here, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities.
business should not be entitled to change their minds at will like that. Contract drafting is already biased for them as it is.
It's already written into the AWS contract when AWS can cut off a customer. These clauses tend to be pretty broad (I haven't read AWS's), and I'd be shocked if hosting government classified information that was getting actively DDOSed didn't give AWS cause to terminate.
To my knowledge, AWS hasn't released a statement on why they terminated WikiLeaks, but I'm guessing that they were within their legal rights to do so.
Nonsense. A business ought to understand the risk before accepting the deal.
Amazon Web Services products are self-service. Amazon wouldn't have known that they were hosting WikiLeaks until after it was already live.
Two reactions to your plan:
Also, it's 9MB, there's a link to the .apk for those of us with metered data plans: com.skype.raider.apk.
If you have a metered data plan to the point that a 9MB download is undesirable, what the hell would you want a chat app for?
In case you're wondering, yes, chat apps consume a lot of data.
Why would I pay $229 for a Boxee when I can pay just an extra $30 more and get a Dell Zino which is a full powered PC that will not only run Boxee but anything else I might need (VLC, XBMC, Flash, ...)
That's why I'd rather have a Boxee box.
I for one want to see more devices that stay 100% out-of-the-fucking-way. Let me hide it in a low profile cabinet. Let me mount it BEHIND my TV if I want. I bought the TV to look at the TV... I bought your device, TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE TV. Sigh.
The Boxee Box uses an RF remote. Feel free to hide the box behind the TV if that's your preference.
But there's no indication that he's a thief or a scumbag.
This is actually not quite true. Check out Terry Childs juror explains why he voted to convict:
IDG News: Going back, what was the one step he could have done to avoid prison?
Chilton: If he would have simply said, "I will create you an account and you can go in and you can remove my access if you want." If he had created access for someone else, I think that would have resolved it. If he had not decided to leave and go to Nevada a few days later and withdraw US$10,000 in cash, [Childs did this the day before his arrest, while under police surveillance] I think the police may have let it continue on as an employment issue and not a criminal matter.
High-end design is an extremely intricate, time consuming process that you really have to put your heart into. Rather than a proper design process with one on one consultation, concept development, drafting, etc the entrants have to create a design based on a short project summary in hopes that theirs will get picked.
For small business owners like me, we don't need perfect, and we certainly aren't going to pay you $10k for perfect.
What we need is "doesn't look like it was done by a 3rd grader". By your standards, it may be crap. But by my standards, it's exactly what I need at a price point that makes sense.
This is why it's important for designers, like anyone in any profession, to provide more value than just design. A lot of people can produce good design. Not everyone can apply real substance to their work, a real understanding of the client, the audience, strategy and implementation. Of course, the trick is being able to convince potential clients of your value.
I think this is pretty much the crux of it, and it's precisely why there is room for both traditional designers and the crowdsourcers in this world.
I own a small business, and there is no way in hell I'm paying $10k for a logo. I'll never get $10k worth of value out of it, so it's just not happening. I am never, ever going to be your client, so you don't care about me.
On the other hand, I still need a logo. I could do it myself and have it look like a 3rd grader did it, or I could use some type of cut-rate designer or crowdsorcer do it and have it look like a college student did it. None of this you should care about, because like I said before, I was never going to hire you to begin with.
Wait 'till it hits IT
Rent-a-coder has been around for years. I don't think it's hurt the software development business at all.
In fact, it's opened up a new market for custom dev work. The people offering up projects on RAC are people who would have just bought a COTS solution before. In other words, if you're a hotshot software dev who is the best integrator since sliced bread, realized these RAC customers were never going to be your clients. Nothing has changed for you.
99designs is never going to be doing logos for a major campaign for a major business. They are not your competitors. The people using them are tiny business owners like me, who were never going to buy your $10k logo, anyway.
You joke, but most businesses rely on their ability to project sober professionalism and seriousness. People who don't understand that Comic Sans (I know, I just font-Godwinned myself here) deteriorates that image of professionalism rather than merely communicating "informal" or "fun" (often when neither is even appropriate in the first place) shouldn't be designing anything that represents their company.
That's the beauty of crowdsourced design, from the customer's perspective.
As a business owner, I can tell you right now that creatives I produce look like they were done by 3rd grader. And with logos at $5k a pop, too bad. 3rd grader it is.
But despite the fact that I can't produce a good creative, I know one when I see it. If you throw 10 or 20 logos on my desk, I can pick the one that best fits my business. So for a guy like me, 99designs is nothing short of pure awesome.
But my needs are meager. I just need something that looks like it was designed by a college student instead of a 3rd grader.
I don't know, $265 is a decent return for four hours of work. Yeah it's a bit slim if it takes you 16 hours.
But only the winner gets the $265. There's a great chance that your compensation for 4 hours of work will be $0.00.
And let me ask you something, do you think the AA logo was done in 10 minutes? twitter's? facebook's?
I do not care. I am not AA or twitter or facebook.
I own a real estate investing group, and all I need is a logo that looks like it was done by a college student instead of a 3rd grader. 99designs is perfect for me.
Traditional designers have lost nothing. I was never going to pay $5k or $10k for a logo. It never held that much value for my business.
I don't think the problem is that professional designers charge too much. They can unlock a ton of value and be worth their weight in gold. How much do you think the deceptively-simple Nike swoosh logo brought in for the company?
But the fact is not every business is in a position to have a logo be worth millions or billions of dollars. For a small business like mine, there is simply no way for me to justify spending $10,000.00 (or whatever a pro designer would charge these days) on a logo. But I am exactly the target market 99designs!
In the old days, small business owners like me would make our own shitty logos or call in a favor from a family member or a friend*. When I make a logo, it looks like it was done by a 3rd grader, and I recognize this, but I'm still not shelling out 5 figures for a goddamn logo to put on my letterhead and website.
On the other hand, shelling out $250 for a bunch of logos and I get to pick out the best one? That's perfect for me! I can do a logo for each apartment building, even.
But the traditional designers should be whining about 99designs and customers like me. Earth to traditional designers: you were never getting my business in the first place. You have lost nothing here.
* Total side note, I've never understood the general slashdot disdain with helping family members with their computers. I love helping family fix their computers, and I don't even know what the hell I'm doing (I have a degree in CS and worked for about a decade as an enterprise architect... I've never fixed a computer professionally in my life... in fact, the only people's computers I ever fix are my family's). Want to know why?
My father has 30+ years experience as a corporate attorney. Guess who I call whenever I am negotiating a deal? Yeah, that's right, the guy who does multi-billion dollar deals over breakfast. And if he ever has any question about computers or gadgets or anything with a transistor in it, I'm on it right away.
My uncle has 30+ years experience as a Neurologist. My wife has Multiple Sclerosis. Guess who we call whenever we have any question or need help with anything relating to her health and need an unbiased opinion? That's right. He frickin' analyzes every one of her MRIs for free because he cares so much. And whenever he has any remotely technical question, guess who is right there for him? Oh, and he recently had his identity stolen. My wife used to do credit policy for a large national bank. Guess who guided him through the process on untangling that mess?
The list goes on and on. The point being, help you family out. When the day comes that you need help, you'll be glad you did. And by "you", I mean "slashdot readers". Not the dude I was replying to, specifically. I have no idea how he treats his family.
Most people cannot consciously distinguish between visuals that have those properties and those that do not, so when the client simply chooses from a large pool of designs there is no telling if the graphic is actually any good.
I would tend to disagree with this. I think most people couldn't create a design that have those properties, but most people know it when they see it.
But, yeah, I agree that it takes a lot to create the optimal creative. I have a degree in Computer Science, so I could read the relevant specs (HTML, CSS, JS, whatever else) and understand them better than my web designer can, but I've tried designing websites before and I can recognize right away that my best efforts simply suck monkey balls. They are just spectacularly awful, and I couldn't tell you why, but I know rotten when I see it.