Crowdsourcing has become the norm when it comes to companies seeking ideas- whether it be ads, logos, extensions, even television shows it comes at a cheap cost. Gone are the days where companies had to pay consultants, designers/artists, and ad agencies to push their latest campaigns. Now, with the help of the internet, these ideas and creations cut the middlemen out and allow the work to be done for free- usually rewarding those whose work has been chosen. Thanks to websites like Reddit, Tosh 2.0 allowed viewers to watch clips that random people had posted on the site. Ridiculousness is another example where original content is posted then picked up by the show; allowing celebrities to comment on the video in a humorous manner. This doesn’t mean that only television has benefited from crowdsourcing, but so have corporations like Google; where a 26-year-old artist from Atlanta, Georgia had created a doodle for Juneteeth. The doodle went viral on social media, to the point where even Google had recognized the image and contacted the artist about his work. The sketch now is Google’s Juneteeth image and the artist was offered a job at Google’s office.
Amateur writers have also impacted what magazines, blogs, and even newspapers publish. Instead of paying a high price for a professional writer, companies will gladly pay a minimal amount to publish the work of an amateur writer; sometimes they don’t have to pay at all! Websites like Listverse, Kotaku, and Wikipedia- just to name a few, rely on those who are willing to receive a small amount of compensation for their time and work whereas the professional journalist would have a set amount, mostly at a high price. As stated in “Blurring the Lines Between Amateur and Professional” written by Timothy B Lee, “…Yet there’s actually nothing obvious about this. As Matt Yglesias points out, there is no shortage of people–some of them quite knowledgeable and talented–who would gladly write for the Times op-ed page for free. Writing a good op-ed requires a certain amount of skill, but it doesn’t require the kind of serious legwork that a lot of straight reporting does. The Times could easily stop paying for op-ed submissions and it would have no difficulty filling its op-ed page every morning. Yet there’s actually nothing obvious about this. As Matt Yglesias points out, there is no shortage of people–some of them quite knowledgeable and talented–who would gladly write for the Times op-ed page for free. Writing a good op-ed requires a certain amount of skill, but it doesn’t require the kind of serious legwork that a lot of straight reporting does. The Times could easily stop paying for op-ed submissions and it would have no difficulty filling its op-ed page every morning….” Which is a true statement with sites like Wikipedia, Spin, Cracked, and even various news outlets publishing work by amateur writers who will get paid by the number of views their work gets, just like a youtube would.
In the same Atlantic article, Timothy Lee also writes“…Media companies begin asking whether they really need to pay for content when so many people are willing to produce it for free…” . In 2017, the triple-A game studio, Bethesda created their Creation Club for Skyrim and Fallout 4. This meant that creations made by amateur modders were officially recognized by the Triple-A giant. Their creations would be uploaded and available for purchase for those who were interested in certain mods. To this day, you can submit your work to the Creation Club, thus allowing more content to be added without Bethesda having to pay their employees to create more content for old games. However, this still makes the company money through the purchases and the modders get their share as well. Sometimes these modders create an entirely new game with their work and sometimes they even do. Thanks to GoFundMe and Kickstarter, projects can be funded by donations from everyday people instead of mega-corporations and companies. The more support someone has the better their creation is going to be and although the Ouya console, (a console that operated on the Android OS), was a complete disaster- that too was funded by donations through Kickstarter.
Crowdfunding has become a saving grace for companies- they can cut costs, gain, and profit from those with little to no experience in exchange for recognition and very small compensation.
