Does web design have a future in 'high wage' countries? (was RE: [thelist] RE: Template Monster [WAS: A Beginner Freelance Question])

Seth Thomas Rasmussen seth at sethrasmussen.com
Fri Jul 23 15:39:23 CDT 2004


Yes, you can do that, but remember: the government is just another pawn,
like you and I, in the war games of massive global and multinational
corporations. They are the cause of situations like this. The eternal
pursuit of the lowest bottom line where everything is potential revenue and
branding space, nothing is real, human, worth anything beyond the $. Talk
about this, speak out against it, work to create situations to combat it...
this will help the future of Web design and ALL professions.

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces-seth=sethrasmussen.com at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces-seth=sethrasmussen.com at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf
Of YoYoEtc
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 3:22 PM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: Does web design have a future in 'high wage' countries?
(was RE: [thelist] RE: Template Monster [WAS: A Beginner Freelance
Question])


This is a very interesting thread and one that really hits home with me.

A year or so ago I was unemployed.  The unemployment office told me I
qualified for H1B training (this is supposed to be where the government
uses some of the H1B visa fees to train U.S. citizens in the same skills
they bring in from other countries).  I had been interested in web site
design, so I signed up.  The course was a pure joke.  Lowest calibre of
teaching you ever could find.  It was a three-month, two nights a week
course and it lasted five months. I came away with next to zero from it. I
did vow to teach myself, though, and that is what I have done. I have
learned more from these lists than I ever learned from a f2f class.

Anyway, isn't it ironic that at the same time the government professes to
be helping the unemployed by using funds from the HN1B programs to train us
that they begin shipping jobs overseas and bringing down the salaries of
people in the IT field.  Once again, I do not have a new field to go to
because of this.

About the only thing I can do now to make web design worthwhile financially
is use it to supplement any other full-time employment income I might have.
However, that still leaves me with having to retrain - once again - for
full-time employment.

What a joke! Apart from that, though, there is nothing more demoralizing
and distressing than being on this retraining merry-go-round.



At 03:35 PM 7/23/2004, Joel D Canfield wrote:
> > Do we of the high wage countries have a future in this field? And if
> > so, what will it look like?
>
>I've also given this quite a bit of thought, which is why I'm getting a
>realtor's license. I'll take we and database work if it comes along, but
>I don't have the time to get and maintain cutting edge skills, and
>that's where the future of web dev is, in 'high wage' countries.
>
>I suspect beginners will always be able to sucker someone into a $49.95
>site, and there will be a certain amount of work for folks at my skill
>levels, but not enough to live indoors and eat regularly. The
>freelancers will fall more and more into very specialized categories.
>How can a generalist compete with a specialist? A PHP expert can always
>do the job faster, cheaper, and probably better than I. Someone who
>works with shopping carts every day can certainly outperform someone who
>only does it occasionally.
>
>We've had quite a few discussions on this list about encouraging
>prospects and clients to demand the best, in order to improve the
>general quality of the web. Once the average web client knows the
>difference between bad design and good design, it's a small step to
>appreciating the difference between good design and great design.
>
>I really love web and database work, but in the last year, I've realized
>I don't have the time to develop *great* design skills, and I don't want
>to spend the rest of my life struggling with mediocrity. As is common in
>economic circles, web dev will polarize into inexpensive, badly designed
>sites, and expensive, well-designed sites.
>
>Perhaps if I could decide on a single thing to become an expert in, I
>could still see myself in the picture.
>
>joel
>--
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-----------------
Tina
(Using Firefox as default browser - Finally dumped IE6)



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