Can Creativity Be Crowdsourced?

New Tools and Technology Force Big Changes in the Ad Industry

Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 04.16.09 @ 10:14 AM

Garrick Schmitt

Much has been made of savvy marketers using "crowdsourcing" to connect their brands with customers, and plenty of pixels have been published on the success of crowdsourced programs like Dell's IdeaStorm, Starbucks' MyStarbucksIdea, The Netflix Prize and Lego's invite-only community. But quite recently a much different discussion has emerged, as crowdsourcing is starting to change the very way we think about creativity, both online and off.

Crowdsourcing is relatively straightforward: It's the online distribution of certain tasks to crowds of experts and enthusiasts. But the effect of crowdsourcing on agencies as well as on the creative process itself is just starting to be felt.

We typically think of "creativity" as a singular effort with the Steve Jobs or Lee Clows of the world -- the solitary individual known as much for their personality as their work -- at the helm. But creativity has always been a social activity. Today's creative agencies are supposed to be hothouses of ideas with charismatic leaders and collaborative teams. Fostering a creative culture counts -- after all, Warhol's factory wasn't just a live/work loft. But what happens when the technology behind crowdsourcing makes creativity a social activity that knows no geographic bounds? Where does the creative produced by the collective take us? Do we visit wild new frontiers or does a herd mentality take hold?

Crowdsourced Creative Services

OpenAd.net: The most disruptive trend for the advertising industry is the crowdsourcing of creative ideas and design services. OpenAd.net is one of the most prominent examples. The service bills itself as a global online marketplace for great advertising, marketing and design ideas. OpenAd.net provides marketers the ability to generate advertising ideas from a distributed network of more than 11,500 creatives from more than 125 countries. Major brands such as MTV, Virgin Atlantic and DaimlerChrysler have all sourced ad work from the company.

Crowdspring: Crowdspring is the most controversial of the companies now offering crowdsourced creative services. The company, which was just nominated for a Webby Award, boasts a network of more than 20,000 creatives from 140-plus countries who vie to provide logo, website and collateral design to primarily small and medium-size business clients. The end results are impressive, as the literally hundreds of submissions made by the designers "on spec" are displayed for the world to see and rate. For example, a recent logo project for "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk generated nearly 275 submissions. A logo for BBH Labs has garnered nearly 1,200 submissions.

Crowdsourced Inspiration

FFFFound!: A more subtle, but perhaps more profound change in the industry, is the way creatives are drawing inspiration from each other. FFFFound!, a now invitation-only graphic bookmarking service is leading the way. The site allows users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, and then dynamically recommends "inspirational" graphics based on a user's tastes and interests. It's a virtual treasure trove of visuals culled from the detritus of the internet.

PatternTap: PatternTap is one of the best community sites for interface designers looking for inspiration to solve common design problems, such as creating 404-not-found pages, navigation, footers, breadcrumbs, log-ins and more. There are literally hundreds of examples for creative minds to consume, remix and remake for their own projects.

COLOURlovers: This creative community site, just nominated for a Webby Award, is exclusively and ardently focused on sharing of colors and palettes. COLOURlovers boasts more than 1 million color names, hundreds of thousands of color palettes and patterns, plus comments and ratings. Interviews with top creative professionals are a bonus, as are blog posts with titles such as "The Art of Color: Rothko Meets Web 2.0."

And these are just a few examples. There are literally hundreds more. It's not always easy to spot the beginnings of a seismic shift, but once a technology is unleashed and widely adopted, it's awfully hard to make it disappear. Just ask any music-industry executive or newspaper journalist.

That hasn't stopped a whole host of industry players from trying, however. The AIGA and several design luminaries, such as David Carson, have taken strong stands against the crowdsourcing of creative services and "spec work." There is even a new online organization called NO!Spec that is actively trying to educate designers on the perils of participating and performing services for free.

The larger ramifications, however, will be on the creative process itself. For the individual creative, it's one thing to remix or mash-up a media assets like a DJ or developer, where attribution may be obvious, but it's quite another to do it with conceptual ideas.

For agencies, crowdsourcing forces us to re-examine how great work gets produced and where the best talent resides. Can a crowdsourced creative campaign or website compare to something an edgy agency produces in Brooklyn or San Francisco's SoMa?

For marketers, crowdsourcing creative services poses both great risks and rewards. Do you risk sourcing one brilliant creative idea at the expense of building a trusted relationship with a partner who lives and helps evolve your brand, in many cases, for years at a time? Can both approaches coexist?

And finally, for the industry as a whole, will the creative produced by the collective yield startling results that are beautifully shaped by geographic and cultural differences? Or will a herd mentality begin to dominate and will everything start to look the same? Time will tell.

Regardless, the crowdsourcing of creativity is proving that a great idea can come from anyone, anywhere. The question then is not whether our industry needs to adjust, but how quickly.

~ ~ ~
Garrick Schmitt is group VP-experience planning at Razorfish and the agency's global lead for user experience. He publishes Feed, Razorfish's annual consumer experience report, and writes and edits the Razorfish Digital Design Blog. In his spare time he flails about on Twitter @gschmitt.

33 Comments

By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY April 16, 2009 12:22:42 pm:

Do you think Apple would have happened if it had been not Steve Jobs but rather a random unpaid horde instead?

Crowdsourcing may be good for refining ideas but the single visionary is still required.

Even Linux is named for its originator.

Ayn Rand must be having fits.

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By gunther | Los Angeles, CA April 16, 2009 12:29:49 pm:

Great post, Garrick. Crowdsourcing is the central thrust behind the current agency "hub-and-spoke" model. The rewards of finding a great idea, even in the most unlikely places, I would think far outweigh the risks. It just seems that bigger, more "traditional" agencies will have to get use to the notion that a great idea doesn't have to come from a copywriter or an art director, but anyone who is invested in the brand or consumer experience.

Gunther Sonnenfeld
http://www.welcometonow,blogspot.com
twitter: @goonth

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By jaiken | San Francisco, CA April 16, 2009 12:47:40 pm:

Great Article...

"But what happens when the technology behind crowdsourcing makes creativity a social activity that knows no geographic bounds? Where does the creative produced by the collective take us? Do we visit wild new frontiers or does a herd mentality take hold?"

I think the crowdsourcing model is evolving and can be applied in a myriad of different ways to ensure that we push into new creative frontiers and resist the "groupthink".

My company 99designs.com, the largest online marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, is definitely attentive to this and will continue to develop the model so that we can provide greater and greater value on both the client side and the designer side.

Also...

"For marketers, crowdsourcing creative services poses both great risks and rewards. Do you risk sourcing one brilliant creative idea at the expense of building a trusted relationship with a partner who lives and helps evolve your brand, in many cases, for years at a time? Can both approaches coexist?"

I think both models can coexist...for example at 99designs, we have seen marketing and other creative agencies utilize our service to rapidly generate a large number of ideas for their clients. They then pick some of the best ideas and continue to develop them further...It can be a powerful tool.

Stay Tuned...much more to come from crowdsourcing and 99designs.

Best,
Jason Aiken
99designs.com

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By mediablogdotcom | Singapore April 16, 2009 12:49:42 pm:

Very nice piece on counter-intuition, Garrick. Crowdsourcing has 2 immediate benefits:

1. It provides clients with a relatively cheap, yet abundant, reality check on Agency ideas.

2. It helps everyone to glean insights on community thinking that may have completely missed the research radars.

Obviously, agency creative VPs don't want to entertain nor encourage that notion, since it may bring a Trojan horse into the equation that could murky the value differentiation so critical to mind-boggling 'concept fees'.

Inversely, agency creative VPs have a lot to gain by leading this charge down the Consumer Republic, and not letting that lead brand and stratey fundamentals.

Thanks for sharing, Garrick.

Terence Chan
http://mediablog.com
twitter: @hwooter

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By STEPHEN | BOCA RATON, FL April 16, 2009 12:50:53 pm:

Nice crowd sourcing overview and thought provoker....Sparks can and should be sought out from anywhere....How to ignite the sparks.....Fuel a flame into a powerfull fire....and then manage a controlled fire into a powerful, sustainable, energy source (vs. a out of control raging fire, and or flame-out).....is the the bottom-line value of a well managed creative process.....
Cheers......Stephen Markow, stephenm@goSPGroup.com

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By bobsoft1 | Boston, MA April 16, 2009 02:11:52 pm:

As powerful as crowdsourcing is, I don't think people are looking 5, 10, 15 years down the road here just yet. Soon you, yes you Mr or Ms $50k/yr designer who puts out 5-10 pieces for your agency per year, you will be replaced by the crowd, and that crowd will instead generate 50 pieces for the same price. Entire ad agencies, particularly the larger, less agile ones but also the smaller more pressured ones, will start laying people off. Then they'll dwindle down to skeleton crews.

Is the logo for your entire brand really only worth $1500 to you, even though it generates millions of hits (or millions of dollars) in ad recognition? Should the Nike Swoosh have been crowdsourced for only $1000? The Lucent circle for $1200?

I'm not envisioning a designpocalpyse any time soon, but most of the world has seen how fast social media moves. Twitter, for example, has grown from "unknown" to "celebrity" status in four years, and already threatens (to an enormous degree, no less) many media giants. If you don't think crowdsourcing is the next massively disruptive social movement, if you don't already see the tens of thousands of layoffs and company shutdowns coming, you're kidding yourselves.

See: http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/CUSTOMER-MADE.htm

If you'll notice the date, there, crowdsourcing has been growing rapidly since at least mid-2006. With mass media picking up on this more and more as the weeks pass by, we may very well be seeing the end of the design world as we know it.

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By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY April 16, 2009 02:24:36 pm:

bobsoft1: Not to mention the lawsuits once one of the crowdsource horde decides they want to challenge the intellectual property rights once their contribution becomes the "next Nike logo."

Some shark lawyers will make a killing representing claims from the horde who claim they were tricked or duped into giving away their ideas. Or those who contributed very similar ideas and got no compensation at all.

As usual, it will be the lawyers who are the real winners.

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By philiptribe | MEDFORD, NJ April 16, 2009 02:34:49 pm:

Are we forgetting the most valuable result of the creative process? When done right it is meant to lead. Creativity has the power to shape the cultural narrative not follow it. Does crowdsourcing really allow this to happen? Henry Ford once said that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.

Philip Tribe | Copywriter
philip@philiptribe.com
@ptribal

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By shazell | Toronto, ON April 16, 2009 03:05:33 pm:

Here's a list of links to more crowdsourced advertising sites:

http://hernaturehisnurture.com/2009/02/10/the-user-generated-market/

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By squaredeye | Greenville, SC April 16, 2009 03:20:29 pm:

Great to see Pattern Tap featured here as a resource for creativity and inspiration. It has a lot of room to grow and provide more for the design community. My revisions for this summer include search, uploading to your own space, and the opportunity for design education through critique. I hope Pattern Tap can be a great resource for improving the industry of web design.

Thanks for showcasing us in your article!

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By KateMc | San Francisco, CA April 16, 2009 03:36:26 pm:

Interesting, provocative post.
My biggest reservation about crowdsourcing creativity is the fact that it can leave designers and writers to execute ideas for which they may feel no ownership. In theory, I do believe that ideas come from everywhere, but I also think ideas are powerless without passionate execution. The keys to successfully crowdsourcing creativity in the agency environment will be identifying the fact that the idea itself is just one part of the creative product, then finding a way to translate the diversity and brilliance of the crowd into the execution of the product as well.

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By jaiken | San Francisco, CA April 16, 2009 05:09:21 pm:

bobsoft1...

I think the crowdsourcing model is expanding and further stratifying the market for graphic design...

You said...
"Is the logo for your entire brand really only worth $1500 to you, even though it generates millions of hits (or millions of dollars) in ad recognition? Should the Nike Swoosh have been crowdsourced for only $1000? The Lucent circle for $1200?"

Not all companies will go the crowsourced route...Lucent for example...probably not....Pepsi...doubt it....these companies spend millions on their logos/branding etc...and they will continue to do so...at top tier agencies.

What about the the small cash strapped startup...or the corner coffee shop...or the thousands upon thousands of other small business who don't need to to spend thousands on a logo...they just need something that looks pretty good and is functional.

That is where crowdsourcing can have a big impact.

Jason Aiken
99designs.com

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By thelostagency | Brisbane April 16, 2009 08:23:34 pm:

@bobsoft1

Carolyn Davidson, famously earned only $35 for designing the Nike swoosh :)

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/twitter-designe.html

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By MichaelDGraham | SYDNEY, AL April 17, 2009 02:42:56 am:

THese recent phenomena reflect the fact that agencies (creative corporations) were and are trying to lock up the steps in the value chain that are valuable - i.e. access to people who do creative work. The ability to digitise the product (not creativity but its deliverable output) has meant that the impact of digital is to 1) Drop the barriers to entry and 2) disintermediate the value chain. This happened to typing pools when word processing happened and computer beaureaux when the PC came along and travel agents had to change their business when direct and intermediated booking engines became commonplace

This is a trend that will NOT go away. I believe it will grwo and will challenge how agencies and their clients buy 'creative'. Look at P&Gs innovation model - that would have been inconceivable ten years ago. What might happened if a client sets up a virtual team of 50 creatives in 25 markets and starts working in the same way?

The lesson will be the same "If you don't add value in the delivery the digital world blows you away. Postboxes beware!

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By TogetherHubbub | Nottingham April 17, 2009 05:04:57 am:

My comment is a simple one. You have to combinbe the cut and thrust of crowdsourcing ideas with another form of group activity, namely, 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. The generation and donation of ideas still needs a filter through which the best ones can find a way of rising to the top.

By building-in market research, through asking the community to cast votes for and against ideas, you also introduce a Darwinian element where the fittest ideas, as judged by the majority, come through for possble adoption.

In my experience of talking to brands about adopting a crowdsourcing strategy it not so much the ideas generation they have a problem with, per se, it's leaving the ultimate decision making to the 'crowd' they have most issue with. If you can persuade them on that fact alone, the "stand back and let the wisdom of crowd take over" and let them take confidence in the fact that groups of people can collectively pick a winner, then if you can do that, you've really move creative hearts and minds on towards a brave, new world of collaborative creativity.

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By tej_arora | Bangalore April 17, 2009 06:24:41 am:

Ideas generate other ideas, so in that sense the ideas from the crowds are like spark plugs that help start engines. The world
is much better off with crowdsourcing of ideas, even if it means having to deal with all the icky legal ramifications.

The crowd can only give you snapshots of ideas. But an idea in execution is really fluid and adapts/morphs frequently. It is upto whoever is executing a project to use the ideas from the crowds as assistive and helping to generate bigger/better ideas.

Tej
http://brandadda.com

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By tomdb2 | BRANFORD, CT April 17, 2009 11:31:23 am:

Another great crowdsourcing site I've used is Genius Rocket (www.geniusrocket.com ). Founder Mark Walsh is a friend, but it stands on its own merits.

Tom de Boor

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By gschmitt | San Francisco, CA April 17, 2009 02:29:35 pm:

Thanks for all of the insightful comments and feedback. Much of the debate here, on Twitter, and within the walls of my own agency has centered on role of sole catalyst (kudos, Craig) and the crowd. My take, when something makes us uncomfortable -- it's probably for good reason! Smart agencies will look to crowdsourcing moving forward to generate both ideas and talent *and* harness it for both clients and themselves.

Couple of shout-outs:
*Jeff Howe, who wrote the book on the subject.
*John Winsor who wrote an earlier book on the subject. *IdeaBounty.com, which just may crack this thing wide open on the ad front. Look here for their work with Red Bull http://www.ideabounty.com/blog
*BBH Labs for boldly looking to source their own logo from Crowdspring
*And Anjali Ramachandran at London's Made by Many that has the single best resource for tracking crowdsourcing activity that I've found:
http://crowdsourcingexamples.pbwiki.com/

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By wilmerritt | MERCER ISLAND, WA April 17, 2009 07:42:05 pm:

Great article but you missed the largest user-generated ad community: Zooppa.com. We started in Europe two years ago, launched in the US in December. We are 40,000 creative members and growing quickly. Right now we are hosting a competition for Google Chrome on our Italian site http://it.zooppa.com/contests/google-chrome. We work with brands from Mini-Cooper to Jones Soda to Best Western. Clients love the wide range of work and perception feedback.

We find a lot of traditional ad folks view user-generated advertising much like they saw blogs five years ago - a "dangerous", uncontrolled source where consumers can say what they really believe about a brand. Blogs are mainstream today and user-generated ads will be too in the near future.

-Wil Merritt, CEO, Zooppa.com
http://www.zooppa.com/

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By lunarboy | San Francisco, CA April 17, 2009 07:56:57 pm:

The reason that I had such a reaction to crowdSPRING when I first found it was not necessarily the idea of doing open calls. But it was the idea of asking for finished work for free, for the chance to be picked and paid.

This is different than almost anything else that I know of. Open calls, auditions and RFP responses are samples of past work, approach strategies or a short sample of the work, not the entire finished work product itself. It's like going to Restaurant A and ordering a plate of food, finishing it and deciding not to pay because you liked Restaurant B better.

Whereas services like eLance and Voice123 (online marketplace for voiceover work) are OK because the freelancers are hired based on portfolio and resume, or on a short audition.

Yeah, this touches a nerve. ;) So much so that I wrote a longer reaction to it on my blog:
http://www.lunarboy.com/blog/post/creation-with-a-crowd/

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By jeremyTuber | Scottsdale, AZ April 18, 2009 10:25:28 am:

I enjoyed your insights here Garrick, thank you.

In answering the question, "Can Creativity be Crowdsourced?" most freelancers and design organizations like AIGA and No!Spec reply with, "Spec work is evil and everyone that participates in it should be burned at the stake", but if you look closely they really didn't answer the question.

I have grown weary of my fellow colleagues tossing around the word "evil" like it was a rubber eraser - sadly there is evil in this world: child abuse, hate crimes and murder. I am not sure "spec work" fits into that group, do you?

Still your question remains unanswered, "CAN Creativity be Crowdsourced?" I took a first-hand look at this, from the client's perspective and found some eye-opening results. I've shared them here: http://tinyurl.com/c54nvu

Can business owners outsource creativity? "Yes"
Should they? "Well that depends"

Thank you again for your insights, Garrick!

jeremy
www.beingastarvingartistsucks.com

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By MATSNL65 | LOS ANGELES, CA April 20, 2009 01:54:59 pm:

In considering both topic from Garrick and the comments from people, It seems that we're confusing tools of collaboration and the human organic process of forming, refining, and executing ideas. Is there really a difference with the basic results beyond exposure to a wider network? The interesting factor is technology, the creative industry and the forces of commoditization that attempts to quantify a value to the efforts of creative ideation, problem solving, and solution discovery.

The Crowd Sourced Creative Services Model that I remember most comes from an age ten years earlier: E-Lance. We see the pluses and negatives of that being what we can expect from crowd sourcing. What I'd like to see trends to how much of major brands work come from networks within a crowd sourced community.. and if those ideas pay off.

Langston Richardson
VP/ECD, infuz
URL: http://www.infuz.com/
Twitter: @MATSNL65

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By mjessell | SAN FRANCISCO, CA April 21, 2009 08:42:00 pm:

Garrick,

Have you seen what Intel and ASUS are doing over at http://www.wepc.com/ ?

"Imagine your perfect PC. Now imagine top engineers and innovators working around the clock to make that Dream PC a reality. That's the dream WePC.com is all about.

ASUS and Intel have created WePC.com, a place where users like you come together to share ideas, images and inspiration about your ideal PC. But what if it's not just talk. Your designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

Matt Jessell
Manager, Strategic Programs
Federated Media

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By JohnKewley | Toronto, ON April 22, 2009 02:55:39 pm:

"Do you believe creativity can be crowdsourced"? Hmmm.

Do you believe in God? Did God ask for input and ideas from a bunch of freelancers? Or did he create the Universe all by his lonesome in a passionate burst of solitary genius?

Conversely, if you don't believe in God, then you might argue that the Universe was created by the ultimate crowdsource, an infinite compendium of isolated actions adding up to one coherent and ever-evolving whole.

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By Miguel | Madrid May 27, 2009 05:31:19 am:

I agree with lunarboy.

Sure, great ideas can come from crowd and in general from the synergies of people brainstorming together. But that is not really the issue.

The issue is more about where the value is going forward and how designers can add value and capture the economic benefits accrued to the value.

I am not sure that I want to work in an industry where I am not sure that I will get paid. I am certainly not interested in giving away my ideas and designs for free. Honestly, I can't understand that other people are, but the fact that they are is a real problem for the rest of us.

Let's assume Crowdsrpring and the like are the future of creative services. That means that the best will rise to the top (not a bad thing) and be the only ones who get paid (not a good thing). Individuals and groups (agencies) potentially will congeal around these hubs to do bid for a chance to be paid (not viable for many firms).

But the only way for this to work from a macroeconomic standpoint is for the general cost of living to go down so that making less money each year doesn't decrease one's standard of living. Or, enough designers leave the profession and in doing so the "pie" of available of work is sufficiently large to pay the remaining professionals a decent wage.

Either way, the future does not bode well for the profession.

Honestly, I think it is immoral to ask someone to work and to not pay them. So evil is a good word to describe some of these sites.

In the book, Wikinomics, the authors recognize a potential backlash by the masses when they realize that firms are making a profit from their as yet non-remunerated contributions. The ideas that will flourish over time will recognize that contributors need to be compensated or interest will decline, especially when those contributors realize they have a family to feed.

Miguel Buckenmeyer

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By bidule | New York, NY July 14, 2009 04:22:28 pm:

do not forget www.specwatch.info
to be followed on twitter too
in order to understand a bit if the future of the business
branding,
marketing,
advertising, etc,
and all what it's gone become soon,
a big mess of misunderstandings :)
may be :)

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By jkrawl | Chicago, IL July 30, 2009 08:06:01 pm:

I believe crowdsourcing is something that can be used heavily in order to garner ideas for our projects. It should never be used as a stand-alone resource because over time, a herd mentality will take place. Hiring private clients for your creatives is still a lot better than crowdsourcing. But what you can do to make the clients job easier, is to take ideas from the crowdsourcing sites in order to help the client develop a more fuller, creative, appealing idea for your particular interest.

This is what I have done and I see no problem with it.

Frank
http://www.absrocketpro.com

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By BPoston | Raleigh, NC August 14, 2009 10:53:06 am:

I think that there are a lot of benefits and risks to crowdsourcing, but the fact remains that the "cat is out of the bag" and it's hard to turn back the tide at this point. I think the best thing to do is seriously consider what there is to gain and lose by crowdsourcing any of your your critical "core-compentency" marketing efforts.

Ben
http://www.howtobuildgolfclubs.com

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By jimi_R | New York, NY August 16, 2009 07:48:44 pm:

Interesting post! I was looking for this article for a long time!! tnx Garrik for posting it!!

Jimi
http://www.buildingmaintenanceoftoday.com/

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By jassie_wu08 | Brisbane August 27, 2009 11:14:19 am:

Crowdsourcing plays a great role in producing solutions from amateurs or volunteers working at their spare time, or from experts or businessmen who are far known to the initiating company or organization. Creating a systematic approach for a certain publication should then be given a great attention before being crowdsourced, thus, creativity should be applied. Creativity just comes from within which literally, i think cannot be crowdsourced.

Jassie
http://www.simplydrinks.com.au/main.htm
http://www.aquaman.com.au/Page/water-filters-qld

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By kablyden | Huntersville, NC September 1, 2009 08:43:26 pm:

Interesting... Can anyone be creative... Is there a collective creative conscious??? or Does it take the Einsteins, and Thomas Jeffersons of the world to birth true creative genius into the world... that thought has usually been the latter... But perhaps collaborative creativity can bring a new paradigm...

Best

Kirschan
http://www.fdiinsider.com

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By breedcommunications | London, NY September 18, 2009 08:40:49 am:

Croudsourcing sounds like a great way to source creative solutions. For the big brand idea like the Unilever Peparami brief someone ultimately has to organise integrating the winning idea for various uses ie PR, digital, experential etc. Do Unilever have the resources to do that themselves? I wonder how committed the companies that usually come up with the ideas will be to deliver. Perhaps they'll just take the money and do the do.

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By kellywsmith | Sparks, NV October 23, 2009 11:39:47 pm:

Having grown up as a designer myself, I have witnessed firsthand the continual reduction in value of my profession. Many times I have made the statement that, "a computer does not a designer make," but having that tool in the hands of millions of people opens the doors to all sorts of people to chime in, whether they have talent or not. But when an artistic person in a poor foreign country creates an acceptable design and only needs to make a few hundred dollars a month to survive, it makes it very difficult for someone who needs a few thousand dollars a month to compete.
While there is much resistance to the implementation of this mentality, Eric Schmidt probably said it best when writing above: "the crowdsourcing of creativity is proving that a great idea can come from anyone, anywhere. The question then is not whether our industry needs to adjust, but how quickly."

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