Crowdsourcing-Dividing Communities

Today's reading and discussion in class was extremely interesting.  As I read the article I found an immense amount of information that helped inform me of a large and growing money making method that is shaping the future of the Internet and business not only in our communities but throughout the world.

Reading through the article I began to imagine myself being involved in a crowdsourcing company making extra money.  In deed this is what many people have come to realize and actually do, making the websites flourish and grow.  This interaction not only brings the average joe out of the background and into the foreground (if their work is any good) but it brings together ideas, thoughts and designs from all over the world, all at the fingertips of the computer.  But does everyone have that opportunity?  Does it bring together communities or does it divide and hurt communities while bringing together a larger group of Internet users?

While this was going through my head, the idea of Walmart and its known way of bringing its business within a community came into my mind.  Walmart has been found over the years to enter a community, close knit and bound with local stores run and owned by the locals who earned a decent living, truly giving to the community.  When Walmart comes into the town, they lower their prices to get the customers from the local shop owners, drawing away money which eventually destroys the hometown stores.  Yes, Walmart will employee many and many locals to work in the store, but the pay for what they do is much less than fair and often the help does not have a knowledge of product they sell or even have proper customer service skill, as the locally owned shops did have.  Over time the corporation raises the prices of products back up to where they were, and the city turns to be much worse off then before dealing with higher prices for lower quality merchandise, horrible customer service and a corporate entity that can do what they please to the susceptible locals.  Crowdsourcing in a way is doing the same thing, but on the Internet.  Look at istockphoto.com, for example.  They accept photos from anyone, amateur or professional and sells it for much less than one would pay for the same product from the local professional photographer.  This seems good for those that do specifically call themselves professionals, but hurts the professionals in ways just like the Walmart diagram I explained above.  Once the online company has run its competition out of business, they can then in return raise the price back up of the photos, which might very often be done by amateurs.  I feel in some ways the use of crowdsourcing could have this effect on the community and in the world wide perspective, giving the amateur professional status.

Realizing who has access to the computers and the ability to run the programs necessary in order to participate within the crowdsourcing group is alienating many people.  People of varying ages that either have no computer or knowledge to participate in a crowdsourcing group, people with low income and no computer facilities, etc. are all part of the large group of people not involved in this money making business.  Will this change anytime soon, I don't know, but I highly doubt it.  Those making and participating within crowdsourcing will have it to themselves.

These issues are at the forefront of crowdsourcing and its affect on community and how it is dividing communities apart from each other, while bringing those privileged together to work in groups gaining more money.  Will my imagination of getting involved in crowdsourcing actually happen?  Who knows.... Anyone wanna start designing hats?...