[svasan]

Kaggle is an interesting site. But the cynic in me says these contests/competitions are just a cheap way of effort harvesting. For a pittance, the companies sponsoring these contests are getting tremendous value in return. If you are a statistician/analytics person, there is no reason to let your value and skills get commoditized in this manner.

[jacques_chester]

Last I heard, Kaggle charges $10,000/month for a competition.

[svasan]

The dollar equivalent of the value the companies get in return would be an order of magnitude more than what Kaggle charges the companies/clients that sponsor the contests.

[jacques_chester]

That doesn't mean it's "cheap", for the same reason Oracle isn't cheap or a private plane charter isn't cheap.