Though labor Crowdsourcing is inevitable and has existed informally for a decade or more, there are critics who point out that this model is akin to building digital sweatshops for the information underclass. I believe three important aspects of labor Crowdsourcing will prevent that dreary scenario from occurring.
1. A crowdworker is free to manage their own timeand move from quickly from job-to-job. There is no contract or physical factory to confine them to their work scenario. Since each assignment is relatively short, a worker can move to a more interesting assignment when they become bored without disrupting the overall workflow. They can also take breaks or stop working whenever they desire. In short, they are in complete control of their working conditions. If enough workers abandon a job due to low pay rate or unfair expectations, it can function as effectively as a picket line. An employer will be forced by market conditions to respond with changes.
2. The playing field is even. Anyone can use a crowdsourcing platform to hire a virtual workforce. That means that with almost no barrier, a crowdworker can gain expertise in a particular niche--preparing practice questions for standardized tests for example--and begin to market these services on their own. There is less risk for the worker to become an entrepreneur and take on small projects because they have a scalable labor source and automated payment system at their disposal.
3. These are only the very crude beginnings of virtual crowd labor. Where the mechanical assembly line set robotic monotony as an ideal, the virtual assembly line benefits from advances in intelligence and collaboration. Soon, collaboration tools will work their way onto Crowdsourcing platforms so that virtual teams can interact and innovate together. Productivity shortcuts will be shared and social networking tools will make more complex and multi-skilled projects viable. Game engines and other methods of re-imagining repetitive tasks will become commonplace. In short, the digital sweatshop is really more of a digital laboratory where the rats keep getting smarter. Eventually they'll start running their own experiments.
