File Sharing and Offshoring

I see double standards everywhere, I guess. It's not so much a moral failing as a human condition. Take file sharing and offshoring. Proponents of free file sharing like Slashdot and BoingBoing speak for a huge number of users and techies who dismiss the entertainment industry's hissy fits over the practice with replies like "Get used to it", "Globalization has made your old business model obsolete", and "File sharing opens up the market with more diversity".

My personal take on file sharing is that is indeed a new game that threatens the business model of the choke point that entertainment companies have profited from for more than a century. It's never safe to dismiss the creative energies of millions of users who want to circumvent the old restrictions on their pleasure. Getting around "The Man" is also more a human condition than a moral failing. The simple fact for the entertainment moguls is that file sharing exists and can't be effectively stopped, so they will indeed have to learn how to live with it. Further, file sharing has begun to live up to its potential as a redistributor of talent, a true exercise in globally democratic artistry.

But then there's B side of the technological album - offshoring. The same globalization and foreign talent development that opened up music and movies has also enabled engineers and developers in Eastern Europe, Asia, and other places to cater to the markets of America. I've heard the anecdotes about how foreign code is often bug-ridden and flaky, but so is much of American code. Further, the quality of the code continues to rise as foreign programmers become university-trained. Only a fraction of the toys from China are lead-coated, and only a fraction of the code from India is trash. We can't confuse media hype with reality.

I have to admit to being conflicted about offshoring. As jobs drift away from Americans, even in small percentages, the net effect is to make talented high schools pause at the door to computer science and engineering. Both the now-historical dot-bomb and current tales of offshoring have combined to devastate computer-related programs in higher education all over the country. We're losing a generation. Offshoring itself doesn't scare me, but its reputation does.

On the other hand, the egalitarian meritocrat within me can't help but marvel at what the other nations on Earth can accomplish with some money and markets. A recent review of a Korean Kia model, for example, compared it favorably with a Lexus, and for half the price. India's Bollywood is now producing movies that can compete in quality with many indies in America. "Dil Se", a Bollywood film that broke into the UK top ten, features an energetic crowd dance on the top of a moving train. Why not put more money and projects into these people's hands? If technology is an unstoppable force for globalization, so is commerce. If we can't stop offshoring because it works, we have to change our business model, don't we? We need to stop bemoaning it and get on with doing whatever we find we can do best.