| Thanks for the response, some viewpoints there that I did not consider (mainly due to my own ignorance as someone not entirely connected to the design and art communities). One thing you mentioned I've never really been able to wrap my head around: But the work that comes out of them isn't generally great, and the clients that use them are generally the kind of clients nobody wants: fussy, demanding, unimaginative and cheap. Clients who probably wouldn't be paying for design services otherwise. It still costs money to get good work. That's what it's really about: protecting the value of the work you do professionally. Why is this the concern of anyone but the person doing the work and the client receiving it? Granted, on the whole, by-and-large it's not anything that's going to destroy the creative design industry or invalidate a beautifully composed ad campaign (for example) but it is something that I've heard before. "Well the work produced isn't that great, these designs sometimes suck". At the end of the day, if the end goal is to please the client, and the client is pleased with what they have, does it matter if it came from 99designs or if it were produced by Sterling-Cooper? I suppose the same can be said for spec-work. If the producer of a product/service/design understands that they are working potentially for free to win a contract, who's business is that but their own and the clients? It seems like there might be a disconnect in that if your goal is to maximize output and bring in a respectable wage-say as a freelancer-that you'll go for clients who are willing to negotiate fair terms, and compensate you a decent wage. Instead, what I see (and this is just anecdotal observation) is people vilifying designers who choose to work on spec. I might be missing the point entirely, so take what I'm saying here with a grain of salt. |