SL & Outsourcing

I thought came to mind as I was hearing Jauani Wu talk about his plans to begin outsourcing SL jobs to India in SecondCast. ( http://www.secondcast.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14 )

It reminded me of the typical sweatshop Chinese operations that Hamlet had reported on.
( http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/11/losing_the_deta.html )

I wanted to raise this question - How do people feel about the idea of cheap outsourcing in SL?

if there is no difference between an individual content creator vs an employed content creator as in ESC and bedazzle, there is no reason to discriminate against indian residents creating content as employs vs individual residents.

unless the real question is - do we really want to share this world with those foreigners? isn't it enough we let them glue our shoes together?

university and college graduates earning a fair wages working and full benefits and job security, working in air conditioned offices, and living a middle class standard of living is not a sweatshop.

He did say cheap, though, not equal.

Outsourcing is driven by the idea that you can pay the people in the target country a lot less than you can pay people in your own. Otherwise, it's just "having a global workforce", and a lot less people worry about that than worry about outsourcing.

I'm not sure why it should remind you of Chinese sweatshops, to be honest. Outsourcing to India, both for call centres and, also very applicable to SL, for IT development is extremely common and it would be natural to expect that similar arrangements would happen in-world. It has nothing to do with sweatshops. More it has to do with the cost of living being considerably less in places like India, and so you can get equivalent services for a lesser cost. In IT, there are some very talented outfits that have been born to provide software development services.

Like all things, however, this will be an evolving situation. As more people outsource to places such as India the cost of living and expectations will go up in those countries, bringing about less of a gain in outsourcing to those places. It will be interesting to see how their economy handles that when it comes, but I suspect it will handle it well.

People often see this outsourcing as something evil and exploitative. But, to be honest, you should find out more about India's outsourcing situation - it's been a fantastic boon to their economy and to the ability for people to earn very good wages relative to their previously available options. India's a great example of how it's been embraced and worked.

There are, for sure, examples where it doesn't work so well, but that's outside the scope of this ramble.

Ahem, I'm already in a crap country where people outsource shit to, thank you very much
Whatever you can do, I can do it three times cheaper

Will we have to build an India subcontinent grid, and institute a a devalued Linden rupee to make it all work? And ummm can I have the contract?

Walks away wondering who's ass I gotta kiss to get the India grid contract, and grumbling about wanting to start Dublin all over again

Dyne,

thanks for pointing that out for me.

Moopf,

it reminded me of it because it is the only other website-published study of full-scale outsourcing that I've seen for SL - even if it's just a quick study.

Eggy,

I've told folks like you and Gwyn that you should charge your American, Brit, and Canuck clients more.

Bo,

hahaah