[QuantumChaos]

I don't really see the problem here. Indians are willing to work under these conditions, which honestly don't sound worse than the US. It sounds like even though they might shrink/grow teams at will, because the building has many teams, the risk for the individual is low. And you said that companies are happy with the work these teams do. So what is the problem?

[tluyben2]

Indians are willing to work under these conditions => willing or don't (think they) have much choice? And i'm sure rows of long, room wide desks without any separation between 1m workspaces with touching chairs and cameras pointing at you to keep you in your chair is not normal/allowed in the US? It certainly is not over here. I see quite a lot wrong with it. It keeps the prices low, sure. I didn't say the companies hiring them are happy though; I said they keep hiring them because it seems like a good idea and you have this team doing work, you can show the hours they spent, you can show what they did etc to your boss. It's kind of 'secure' compared to, let's say, Elance, where a really good developer(team) suddenly disappears to turn up a few months later with 'sorry, had some personal/company/financial/cosmic radiation issues' leaving you to explain why you hired this loose cannon.

Quality wise I have not seen anything coming from these shops, however that might be OK for departmental (read CRUD; the type MS Access was made for) LoB applications, mobile apps and internal sites.

Edit: stand corrected, I did say happy.

[QuantumChaos]

Yes they do have a choice. Their choices are more limited because they live in a poorer country. On the American companies, didn't you said I hear some companies actually get work done this way and are very happy with it, growing continuously without worrying about who does the tech; Not saying you're 100% wrong on outsource being a safe option for managers, but you really did say that American companies were happy with outsourcing.

If you apply basic microeconomics to this situation, it is actually very simple. The company makes Indian workers better off, American workers worse off, and American companies better off.

[tluyben2]

I indeed did say happy. Should have the context on my screen when typing replies. You have a point of course; they do have a choice. Sort of. If you are not very talented but you did get a CS degree (which holds for a lot of people), what are you choices really?

Guess the point was that outsourcing is no longer cheap (it is) and I only know about coders as that's what I encounter every day, I'm not thinking call centre employees etc. So it's rather logical why all try to get a CS degree, as the article probably applies well to call centres or manual labor. For CS is see a bright future; I would just like it more if Indian founders would go for nice, high quality startups offering services for 70% of western prices instead of massive factories hiring anything they can get and selling for 30% (and rising).