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oDesk = eSlavery 2.0
Written by Allen Stern - November 15, 2006
I first learned about oDesk when listening to Michael Arrington at the Future of Web Apps summit in September. I decided to take a more in-depth look a this web application. What I saw scared me. In fact, I call oDesk, eSlavery 2.0. Why? Read on for my reasoning.
But let's start with the positive. Hiring workers (mostly offshore) is hard. oDesk, on the surface, does a good job of handling the finding of a professional to handle a need. They do testing and verification which is a good thing.
So I started to look deeper. And this is where the slavery aspect begins. When we think of slaves of the last 1000 years, there are several things in common. The most common is the fact that the "masters" would watch them to make sure they worked. And if they didn't they got whipped or beaten or worse. Now while oDesk does not go that far, they certainly allow you to watch and monitor. So how do you watch?
The first way you can watch your worker is by monitoring his/her productivity on the keyboard and mouse. Don't check your Yahoo! mail or check the latest Paris Hilton pic or you will be penalized. So those who type faster or click faster, are more productive and thereby get a better rating. Same thing masters did to their slaves.
The next way you can watch is by actually making the worker post images every 10 minutes of themselves in front of their pc. I mean ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So if you happen to have a stomach ache suddenly hit you within 3 minutes of photo time, you best get a bed pan. And make sure you get your lipstick and blush on first. Same thing masters did to their slaves.
From the oDesk site about watching:
Monitor Activity -- oDesk Team creates filmstrips of the provider’s online activity (screenshots and webcam shots). You can literally see what your team members are working on. Buyers use this visibility to spot check code, see when the provider is working, and see if the provider is getting stuck on any tasks.
Could you imagine any web shop in the U.S. recording the activities of their employees so closely? I would love to see (insert web shop) setting up this type of system. What about a large corporation. Let's see that happen. C'mon. I am quite sure that within a short period the employees would be gone. I have used several contractors over the years and about 15% of the time, it does not work out. But I have never even considered putting a web cam on them. One of my best friends does my design work. I could only imagine what it would be like if I (seriously) asked him to put a web cam and a click tracker on when he works on projects for me. I am sure I would no longer have a great designer or a friend.
In fact, oDesk has a video showing their office from behind the scenes. I don't see any web cams taking pictures of the employees. Carol and Maureen? Ron and Josh from operations? Does anyone monitor their activities? When those employees look at the camera and talk, is their keyboard/mouse productivity going down? Does the CEO, Gary Swart, send his web cam shots to the investors every 10 minutes? What about mouseclicks? I can just imagine the fun the oDesk team has looking at all these bits of info and images.
So why do I believe we allow this? It's simple... from the research I have done, the majority of workers on oDesk are from outside the U.S. and the majority of buyers are inside. So I assume the buyers feel it is ok. It is "ok" to take advantage of the Russians, the Indians, the others. All of the documentation is in English and Russian which makes me believe that there is a large percentage of Russian people on the site. Actually if you look in most categories, a Russian person shows up first for hours worked. Why are the Russians ok with this monitoring? Because my guess is that the money outweighs the monitoring. Furthermore, if you are paying someone $15/hr and assume they work 40-ish hours in a week, the maximum you would be out is $600. So for $600 you force someone to monitor their activities like a rat in a cage.
Here is the bottom line... oDesk has some good attributes, but the monitoring is absolutely absurd and really is sad that people buy into this model. If you don't trust someone, don't work with them. If you are worried, start with a small project with someone while you work out the trust factor. Clearly oDesk's motto is "We don't trust the people we represent". Really shameful in my opinion. I welcome comments from those who have used the service as a buyer and would certainly be open to a discussion with oDesk management about my concerns.
Update 11/16: Some questions for oDesk:
- How do you handle work away from the computer? Meaning, while I get that "productivity in keyboard clicks and mouse clicks = payment" what about when I am working on thought?
- What does oDesk take as their fee?
- Stats on providers and buyers - send me some stats please
Our Partners
yes, it sucks. These marketplaces should be based on delivered results, not on actual work time. Also, there is design and problem solving. You can do that (stronger: you can do that better) while driving or while taking a shower.
However, give it for granted that a certain amount of people will be ok with these requirements.
hi allen -
[full disclosure: i do occasional consulting work for oDesk in marketing & product areas. i also help other startups, and i'm a geek and fellow blogger]
hmm... i think your analogy is a bit over the top. slaves don't get paid, and their work is involuntary. they also can't quit if they don't like the conditions. none of that is the case at oDesk.
people who work for oDesk do it as a voluntary action, and they can leave at any time. but they don't... largely because they're making anywhere from 2x to 10x what they might normally make in their local environment (as you note in your post above).
on the contrary, oDesk monitoring & measurement is NOT some kind of 'big brother' thing, it provides a way for the buyer to make sure work is being done... AND IT ALSO provides a way for the worker to make sure they're going to be paid. it works for BOTH sides, and helps provide an audit trail for either party.
finally, while the desktop snapshots are the core part of unique oDesk differentiation, the web cams are optional. not everyone uses them, however several folks do (usually to help improve communication, in conjunction with Skype or other systems that enable videos as well as VOIP). this includes even a few folks at oDesk, so you're incorrect that they're not used internally -- oDesk eats its own dog food, and perhaps 1/3 of the team is located around the world remotely.
in summary, the tools and features that oDesk offers are all provided to 1) increase communication, and 2) record an audit trail of the work that's being done. oDesk providers participate VOLUNTARILY, and there are plenty of other competitors out there they could be working with who DON'T have these tools.
while you certainly have a right to your own opinion and perspective, i'd respectfully disagree with your "slavery" characterization. it's just not accurate, and i'd say it's a bit unfair. if you disagree, you should speak with some of the people working using our tools, and i doubt you'll hold the same opinion afterwards. (see this poem about oDesk for a more light-hearted perspective)
regards & in any case thanks for the post & discussion. communication always helps :)
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
Dave, is it exactly the same slavery as jews in germany or blacks in the usa? No. But is it on that same direction, I believe so, yes.
Your comment about the money immediately made me think back to being a young kid watching the WWF - there was a guy there Ted Diabese - his big phrase was "everyone has got a price" - so what you are saying is that pay them the right wage and you can treat them anyway you want?
You state, "oDesk providers participate VOLUNTARILY, and there are plenty of other competitors out there they could be working with who DON'T have these tools."
Yes, you are right they could go elsewhere. But can they really? USA employers are over here loving oDesk because they can "spy" on their workers which is probably not allowed here.
What happens if the guy/girl want to take 20 minutes to "think" - I guess in oDesk's system, thinking is not allowed.... hmm... what does that remind you of?
I saw the poem yesterday and decided not to include it because I like Matt a lot and respect what he does. He also has written an article here.
allen: if the providers want to take time to "think" in our system, they certainly CAN.
specifically: they CAN edit the picture stream (whether or not it includes web cam shots, or whether it's just the desktop + mouse clicks), and decide what they want to leave in.
hell, even if they want to watch *PR0N* they can choose to take it out... or leave it in.
the primary thing oDesk provides is TRANSPARENCY, and again i reiterate this serves both parties well:
* buyers can see what work has been done (or not)
* providers can show what work has been performed, so they can be paid
whether or not the buyer has an opinion about "think time" is not the critical issue here -- some buyers will care, some will not. the point is that oDesk provides a way to measure and show transparency on the work performed that helps build trust, and helps improve project communication on both side.
and far from being their only option, those folks are certainly free to use products from our competition (who btw, DO NOT have our monitoring & communication tools). and while they may not have other local economic opportunities, they certainly have a world of competitive opportunities online.
again, i'd encourage you to chat with a few of oDesk providers on our forums & community and form your own opinions:
https://community.odesk.com/
regards & as always appreciate the discussion & exploration :)
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
Dave - so explain how this would work.... I am a provider on oDesk - you are my master (LOL) or buyer.
You hire me to do some PHP work for you. I need to now diagram the work, think about how this work will be completed, maybe sketch a diagram on my whiteboard or notepad. Do I get paid for this time? How does that time get computed into my "productivity" quotient?
Let's start with that and then I will have follow-up questions after that.
Thanks - I am glad we are discussing this and I hope that someone from oDesk will be willing to do an audio interview with me at some point.
hi allen -
ok so let's assume you, the programmer doing the work, have been hired to do some PHP work for a buyer (person you're working for). you download and run the oDesk Team toolset, which records work activity, enables you to log your hours in a work diary (this can also tie your time to specific bug/features), and allows you to record screen snapshots. as you're working, your keystrokes & mouse activity are detected, and 6 times randomly every hour a snapshot of the desktop is taken, along with the key/mouse activity, and recorded as part of the work diary. if you're using a webcam, you can also enable video capture to the work diary (optional, not required, depends on programmer and buyer preferences).
now, if some of your "work time" is not spent doing work on the computer, you can still use the oDesk Team Memo to log a text entry of the work you're doing offline. this becomes part of the work history available for your buyer to view & audit, and for you to record as part of your billable hours.
if you want more details on oDesk tools, feel free to checkout the oDesk handbook here, along with video tutorials:
https://community.odesk.com/handbook
hope this helps, and i believe someone from oDesk will be following up to chat with you about the interview request. i'm sure we'd be happy to make that happen.
thanks & appreciate the time,
- dave
So if I work for say 3-4 hours "thinking" - I then enter the time into the system - how does this affect my productivity rating? Track the keyboard, track the mouse, look pretty for your pic, perhaps you should send them a house arrest bracelet to wear so that you know if they look or step away from the PC...Also - faster typing = higher productivity? What makes up the rating?
Your productivity is not being measured by clicks, never. The ratings are made by buyers, based on quality of work, communication skills, etc. When you add offline time ("thinking" time, if you want), it needs to be approved by buyer, see https://community.odesk.com/adding_offline_time
Best regards,
Dmitry.
Dmitry - how is the productivity rating produced? What factors go into it? So Master must approve Worker's time for "thinking"...
You can read more about feedback ratings here.
I don't fully get your second question/statement (about "Masters" and offline time). Offline time is not related to ratings, it is just a way to add billable time to one's workdiary, in case it is needed. For example, if you simply forget to turn on oDesk Team client while working, and then can you add the missing time ad "offline", and explain to to your customer why do you need it.
Regards,
Dmitry.
You can read more about ratings here.
Best regards,
Dmitry.
You know how far do you have to go to get work with a company like that?
I can understand both sides of this but the simple fact is managers do not manage their employees or their projects very well.
The first thing is HR should be taken out behind the shed for even thinking of such a situation but is HR doing their job when they have to resort to such tactics?
Companies like walmart The Largest Employer in the World have about the same approach but in a different way. Their HR Managers are so bad at hiring good people that most stores have over 100% turnover every year. Now does that matter to Walmart? No because there are enough people out there to hire that will take $6.50 an hour that the HR staff can hire anyone they want.
Now companies that use this webcam ScreenShotCam software are saying we have really crappy HR Staff and we cant find honest employees or Managers that can Manage staff and Projects.
Hire some Good People and Pay them a Good Wage and they will be happy to work for you and If you have things not getting done then the manager fires that individual if the Manager cant Manage get a new manager.
There is no reason for this software except POOR MANAGEMENT.
However companies will use this bandaid to allow them to hire anyone and even outsource to other countries where they cant have managers handeling workflow because the employees are 18 hrs away by Leer Jet.
Come on companies WakeUp
on the contrary bob, companies in odesk do have project managers, and I myself am a provider for odesk and submit daily report on my activities to the manager, although it is not necessary but it keeps them managers abreast of what is going on. The web cam thing has been on in odesk ever since it started but I don't remember anyone that I know of ever really using it, I've never even used the webcam -- not ever. What I am concerned about is the keyboard stuffs and the sites that you browse, the screenshots, but I do have reasons why I go to other sites other than the assigned site to fix while i'm logged on to the odesk tools; simply put it looking for an inspiration -- just not the keyboard strokes, well... actually it counts how many keyboard strokes not the exact text and mouse movement and mouse clicks.
Employers or buyers (i just don't get it why they call them buyers... hmmm.... that makes them our masters... YES Master.... ;) ) don't really care what you do, I even leave my PC on -- while logged on to odesk and step back to gather my thoughts on what to do next while the pc stays idle for even a couple of hours, one time I was so stumped i wasn't doing anything at all(I had to log off and sleep it out, it'd be pretty unfair to charge clients while your sleeping). In the end employers want the end result of what you do, that's the bottom line.
I understand agree, almost. I agree that it sucks to be paid for time and not for results. Sometimes thought it is helpful to be paid hourly, and not by the job. As far as monitoring goes, I disagree that it's something that only people in countries with lower paying jobs would do, millions of people in the United states put up with being monitored daily. Not by cameras or software but by a human being possibly in the same room as them (a lot like a slaver I suppose, they hovered over those put under there charge and whipped 'em when they didn't do it, right?) But slavery isn't a matter of making sure your employee is working, it's a matter of forcing someone to work and not paying them for it. If anything this is much less of a form of slavery then things I've seen, such as when an employee is hired on salaried and then made to be oncall in order to keep there jobs, after which being made to work in excess of 100 hours a week permitting an average of only a little over 9 hours of liesure/sleep/eating/anything else that a human needs to do per week. I don't know, but it seems like making sure a person gets paid for every hour they work seems a little more fair than making sure you get every last ounce of a persons strength in work while only paying them a pitance.
You noted that a large portion of the people working for hire at oDesk are probably foreign and put up with the monitoring because they can't get anything else. Isn't it the same in the United States. I don't know about you, Allen, but if my boss wants to pop in while I'm working to make sure that I'm working, he will. Also, the company I work for has made it clear on there computers that anything you do on the computers can be monitored (doesn't mean they do, but if they wanted to they could put keylogging software on the computers). I work in the Data Center for this company, and I haven't seen them go to these lengths yet, but they don't have to. Like I said, if my manager decided he wanted to know what I was doing, he could walk in and see. So is that slavery? The company that is paying me to work, should have the right to know that I'm working when I claim I am, shouldn't they? At one point, they considered putting cameras in the Data Center, not just to monitor us, but to show off our hi tech DC to the world. (I think they decided not to, because with the way some of the people working here look, um... well you get the picture, and tbh, i'm probably one of the worst, hehe.) I understand and agree with you that people should be payed for results, but if a company wants to pay people for there time rather then there results, that's up to that company. I can see benefits in this field to getting paid by the hour too. If I am hired by a company to design a large and complicated website and I do it as a contract job, I would look at how much time and effort I would have to put in to the site and that is what I would charge the company, but what if I start designing the site, and the company starts telling me that I'm not doing things as they want them done, having me redesign large portions of the site and adding perhaps days on to my original estimate of time and effort, after these things start happening I might go to the company and tell them this exceeds our original deal and I will require higher compensation. That would seem reasonible to me, surely, but to the company, it may seem like I'm just trying to rip them off. I do half a job, and I ask for more money, getting paid by the hour and with them seeing me work, would negate this because now the company can see that I've spent a specific time working, and they can see that they are paying for the work. For small projects, getting paid per job is fine, but with multi-month or multi-year projects, hourly would ensure both parties that things remain fair.
That's my opinion, and you are free to disagree. Just don't expect the current way companies around the world operate (that is monitoring employees by means of management and other things) to end.
In the USA, the model for slavery is the agricultural slavery of the plantation system that existed before the American Civil War. In that system, even though slaves were sometimes beaten or even killed by their masters, there were laws against such abuse. But, what is more applicable to the discussion of oDesk (and those "buyers" who use it), is that agricultural slaves were an investment and slave owners had a financial interest in preserving the health and well-being of their property. Slave owners had to provide shelter, nutrition and health care to their slaves because the failure to provide these things could result in a financial loss for the owner.
The oDesk model is much more like the situation of holocaust victims in the fascist labor camps of the second world war. Those slaves were worked by their masters without regard for their health or nutrition since those who died under the whip could be readily replaced at very little cost to the exploiter (i.e. the Nazi SS and the corporations that owned the factory attached to the labor camp - Auschwitz was a synthetic rubber factory - the owners of the factory paid a fee to the SS for the procurement of labor).
oDesk plays the role of the SS in this new model for labor organization. The function of oDesk is to procure labor at the lowest cost and to monitor the workers to achieve the highest possible (documentable) productivity.
The "buyers" play the role of the factory owners. Just as it was at Auschwitz, buyers have no concern for the health or well-being of the provider. No thought is given to whether $15 per hour will pay for tuition loans, rent, groceries, utilities, or transportation - much less health care. The buyer is only interested in obtaining labor at the lowest cost and if the provider ends up homeless or in bankruptcy court, a replacement is readily available at the same or lower cost.
oDesk is not slavery - it's fascism.
Hello,
You have an interesting point, but by your definition, working on a desk in a company office would be considered slavery simply because the boss can come in and check on you.
I believe that oDesk's solution is simply bringing distance work closer to "actually being there".
They also allow you to charge for "offline time", which could include anything like phone calls, creative process, meetings and other things that cannot be measured in clicks.
I've been using oDesk for about a year, and I have been on equal terms with all the clients that I have worked with. They were perfectly understanding when I informed them about delays or periods of absence. I experienced nothing that I would call slavery. Besides, sending webcam images is optional and I usually turn it off - never had any problems because of that.
Banks and retail shops have cameras monitoring the tills to avoid theft. The boss glances at monitos as he walks around to make sure people are on task. Factory workers have quotas. Salespeople have goals that their jobs depend upon. There are piles of network/client monitoring solutions out there that many major companies use. Lots of Fortune 500 companies limit web browsing to company resources only.
This isn't slavery, it's oversight. And a business owner has a right to oversee as much or little as he wants (and a worker has a right to walk away from the job at any time).
Jobster, eh?
> And this is where the slavery aspect begins.
> When we think of slaves of the last 1000 years,
> there are several things in common. The most
> common is the fact that the "masters" would
> watch them to make sure they worked.
Heck, I want to work for a company where nobody cares whether an employer worked.
We are not slaves, slaves are not we!
From each according to ability - to each according to need.
Allen,
Small businesses don't throw employees into long training programs, give them room to grow and review them after six months. They need to work closely with their people and see deliverables immediately. You might call that 'intrusive', but it seems a lot more common-sense to call it 'small'.
Which makes small firms that can neither gamble on employees nor afford top graduates such a good match for Ukrainian, Moldovan and Indian developers who can't show extensive credentials but can immediately prove their abilities when they get to work.
We're talking about work, after all, that would not happen if not for services like the one you're sizing up. Employers wouldn't find anyone they could afford to hire – and developers wouldn't have a place to build their chops. I think it's no wonder that a company solving that problem finds so many defenders...
I used to work a large telecom company and they monitored our screens all the time. and then used to play them back to us, when being disciplined. there is a ton of monitoring software out there, as well as filtering software. I hated it, but being on other side now as an employer I can understand it. same as talking on the phone all the time.
The complaint about the monitoring is so off ... I rather know that I am monitered than my employer monitoring me and not telling me. Big companies do look in to phone records, email records, logs on servers, keylogers, etc ... Happens every day all day long in the US.
Look Allen, these guys are making a fortune in their local currencies (depending on each one's situation).
Some of them will be offered dream jobs on the basis of their work on oDesk. And it's a huge bonus for buyer (at whatever price)that there is a built-in human resources and project management system.
Trying to keep track of employees is a huge nightmare. Whether online or off. These guys working on oDesk don't have to work more hours per week than they'd like.
I can't see a loser in this situation (apart from local second-rate developers: the first tier crowd are not out of work - time to improve the skill set). And as other commentators noted, it's not that surveillance is any better in a normal office environment. There much of the time you have a useless wanker (superviser) following you around interfering with your work. At least this way the provider is in direct contact with the boss in most cases.
My own rather more enthusiastic oDesk review is here.
La Vie Viennoise
With the dollar going down the drain, where is the advantage now? But this is off the point anyway. Any solid team is based on thrust and employee involvement in the thinking/creative process. Void that and u get garbage from your employees. Meaning that Odesk is garbage that works for garbage companies to employ garbage labor. There is just no future in this model. It goes against all trends in management. The product of peculiarly small minds.
You want to see evidence? There is no list on their site of companies that do employ their services. Meaning: If I a perspective employer, how do I decide your system works? Where is your case history? What are you guys hiding? Shameful is to say the least. Cause I would rather say that this is a scam.
I am a buyer on Odesk, just about to start my first project. I think odesk is great, but not sure how to take their 'tracking mechanisms'. Frankly, I don't need that. I can tell if a person works or not. I don't need to be behind their backs (or shoulders) to determine that. the metrics are quite simple - results! I can estimate the length of work of a given task. (been in SW for a while...)
note that this works both ways... if you are a reasonable developer (like you said in the interview) you will complete the task within time allotted, if you are slow , it will take you more time and you lose.. and if you are really good, you will finish it faster (and can play solitaire for all I care...)
bottom line - I don't think it's needed. maybe odesk thought of this as a differentiating factor.
Hi... I worked in a company where a fellow worker was doing non-work-related activities for 80% of the day...I Only Wish this Tool had been implemented there.If I'm getting payed to work, enjoy my job etc... then I would be happy for my employer to keep an eye on me - this would benefit me even more by keeping my mind set on my goals, and not allow me to drift off on tangents (which is a common trait of the procrastinator and bored worker).ODESK Employeeds may Choose to work or notit's called FREEDOM not slavery.
I love how the oDesk website states 'no credit card needed' then thinks it OK to place a hold on your card for $100 - prior to any project being completed. Would it be too overwhelming to state that next to the 'no credit card needed' statement? Not sure what to think of the 11% [+] fee either.
As a web hosting provider, I need subcontracted coders and have used scriptlance.com, guru.com and the like on several occasion's. Can't remember having a $100 hold placed on an account or credit card before any work was completed, let alone At ALL. That forced me to close my account immediately. Even asked them to stop sending emails and they couldn't do that. Ended up having to report their emails to SpamCop.
4 thumbs down for this service!!!
You obviously have something larger against the tech outsourcing industry. Move along child...welcome to the real world