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Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

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Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#221
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet money precisely nobody is going to seek out those photographers because they found them in the fineprint of some probably cringeworthy netflix show. The best they can hope for is having additional munition to convince a potential but hesitant customer. Also, some people need money this month, not maybe-money 2 years down the line.

So no one would value the experience and prestige of being involved in a successful program that has an audience of 30 million. No one? That’s a pretty bold assumption. As for the money this month vs later - this is the gig for them. Again, just because it’s not a an appropriate gig for all photographers doesn’t mean that it’s a gig that might not be exactly what a different photographer could benefit from.

> So no one would value the experience and prestige of being involved in a successful program that has an audience of 30 million.

Thank you for misrepresenting what I said.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#222
post #42
post #21

The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way. I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters. It'd be a good change to advocate for down there as well. And, honestly, internships aren't free for companies unless there is literally nothing of value be…

>I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. When I worked with interns they were all paid... but every one was more time and expense to work with than any value they provided. In weeks they accomplished what I could do in an afternoon, and we spent WAY more than an afternoon of work with them. Amazingly many seemed to have a very high opinion of their productivit…

> In weeks they accomplished what I could do in an afternoon,

Somewhat like nearly every entry level engineer.

You are right that "free labor" is a inept way to think about internships, but it's also true that its one of those things where returns are somewhat dependent on investment. A good internship program can get a lot of useful things done and also be useful to the interns. There is certainly variability, but typical interns can be productive withing the scope of their term. Great ones will outproduce some of your full timers.

Biggest win is if you do it right you can make some great hires.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#223
post #10

There is a Twitter account dedicated to people that try to abuse the exposure thing. As you might expect, the most stories are from USA https://twitter.com/forexposure_txt

I love the assumption that exposure has zero value. Usually from people who have only ever taken a paycheck from someone else.

Exposure has value. Otherwise these kinds of things wouldn’t exist. If you don’t agree, don’t do the gig. Pretty simple. But no! That’s not enough! Those other people are expressing wrongthing and must be corrected.

Ugh - bunch of freaking busybodies. At least in the days before pervasive communications (i.e. social media) busybodies were restricted to those physically around them or relatively small communities. But now thanks to the miracle of sites like Twitter everyone can have their own personal Gladys mocking and judging their every move.

Yippie.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#224

I think the scale of the 'Exposure' does matter here (please don't just downvote, hear me out). Exposure = Advertisement, right? Wouldn't you pay for advertisement? Now, if you invest very little for advertisement, you might get very little in return. Say, your investment is doing a free 'exposure' gig for a return of 20-30 potential customers. This might not be equitable to your time/equipment/team/etc. Now, in the…

I'm willing to bet money precisely nobody is going to seek out those photographers because they found them in the fineprint of some probably cringeworthy netflix show. The best they can hope for is having additional munition to convince a potential but hesitant customer. Also, some people need money this month, not maybe-money 2 years down the line.

You don't have to be sought out to be able to proclaim "as seen on Season 2 of Love is Blind" and have an air of credibility in a competitive world absolutely packed with people of moderate ability attempting to establish themselves as pay-worthy.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#225
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems fairly self-explanatory - the oversupply is of individual human workers, not some product. The individual at the bottom of the pyramid is hurt directly. A large business is treating a specific human at the bottom with disrespect. The name of the economic principle at play is morally irrelevant. I.e. economic shrewdness is not equivalent to morality.

I think everything you read is true, but also I think speaks to the overabundance of supply. To put this in a different light - people (here among all places) are especially sick of firms like Accenture/IBM/etc. of loading up projects with unexperienced junior people and putting absurd markup on their services. Which one do people want? Paying for soccer teams full of inexperienced people learning on the job or promi…

It sounds like you're offering a choice between paying nothing but exposure or paying just as much as for the most senior experts.

If someone is less good, pay them less, but still a living wage. If they're not worth that much, and you don't want to train them to be worth that much, then don't hire them.

But that's all assuming the price of a contract is roughly proportional to the cost to implement it. Any "absurd markup" is a totally different issue.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#226

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I am feeling chatty today. As long as safety + working conditions are not cruel and unusual, and someone is willing to work for $0, why are you trying to stop (or hide) that fact? Someone willing to work for less (or for free) is offering a bargain to incentivize giving him/her the business or the benefit of experience instead of more $. You restricting them from doing that does…

The issue is that with supply and demand, the market will bear poor/abusive conditions for people that have no rational ability to make a difference but superrationally would be able to do so. A prominent example is child labor laws. Before these were passed, the market would bear endangerment and injuries to children because something was better than nothing to families that had very little, and it was rationally in…

Child labor is similar in some ways, but I do want to point out some important differences. Children are not legally able to make contracts. We recognize children as being unable to rationally process on the same level as adults. To the extent adults have a problem with hyperbolic discounting, children often have that same problem but much worse. And children often have no choice but to obey a person in authority over them (typically parents).

If you put all that together you get a perfect storm of terribly misaligned incentives and vulnerability that make child labor a very different case than what we're discussing here. It's entirely possible or even likely for a rational service provider to throw in a freebie in exchange for intangibles like publicity. It happens all the time in the adult world. So I don't think child labor is a fair thing to compare this situation to.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#228
post #21

The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way. I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters. It'd be a good change to advocate for down there as well. And, honestly, internships aren't free for companies unless there is literally nothing of value be…

>> They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters This really isn't true. First the word "internship" is not codified in any law. Second employment law is typically provincial unless it's a federally regulated industry so the rules are different everywhere. Finally, most jurisidctions allow them if they're the "hands-on" part of an educational program, which IME…

A source for your statement: https://www.lawnow.org/the-law-of-unpaid-internships-in-cana...

Most provinces don't allow unpaid internships, but some provinces have very loose exceptions to this rule. At least, the unpaid internships have limits around work hours.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#229

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I am feeling chatty today. As long as safety + working conditions are not cruel and unusual, and someone is willing to work for $0, why are you trying to stop (or hide) that fact? Someone willing to work for less (or for free) is offering a bargain to incentivize giving him/her the business or the benefit of experience instead of more $. You restricting them from doing that does…

The problem is that unpaid internships are a big contributor to ongoing economic inequality.

In industries where jobs require experience, and that experience can only be obtained through unpaid internships, the end result is that people who can't afford to work for free for several months are prevented from entering that industry entirely.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#230
post #146
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed that legislating this is the best route here. It's hard to blame netflix for trying to get free labor when they know they are going to get away with it every time.

From the article, this does not appear to actually be Netflix. Netflix is the studio. This the production company producing the show that will run on Netflix. (Studios are mostly about green-lighting shows/films and, obviously, overseeing their investments. But they're mostly not actually producing the shows themselves.)

The point of which company specifically did this is fairly irrelevant here in regards to my parent comment. Replace Netflix with whoever or whatever it was.
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