Hybrid Assignment 05
Marisa Chung
Hybrid Assignment 05
10/06/15
In this week’s reading, Ross explains the cheapened and discounted form of labor that affiliates with the rise of digital media by sharing many different examples throughout the chapter. One of the examples that stood out to me most was the white collar / no collar interns. I can personally relate to this because this is something I also experienced, as well as many people that I associate myself with. From my personal experience, I feel as though internships have become the new entry-level job that consists of the same responsibilities and basic experience, except it is only without one of the most important factors; without compensation or benefits. I absolutely understand that getting an internship is a great opportunity to learn and build experience, however I also think that unpaid internships requires as much hard work and effort as a real “job”. In addition, internships do not guarantee an individual with a job when the internship is finished. Therefore, I believe that it is extremely unfair for interns to work hard without getting paid for their work. Unfortunately, as Ross mentions in the chapter, Corporate America takes advantage of this system and gets a “$2 billion annual subsidy from internships alone”.
Ross also mentions that the financial profile of some companies are extremely high. According to Ross, Facebook alone took in an estimated $4.3 billion in revenue in 2011, and almost 1 billion of that was net profit. The firm only had a little more than 2,000 employees on payroll. And how do companies such a Facebook make a huge financial success? It is through the subscription base of Facebook’s half a billion users. (Us) Ross adds that the users are not consumers in any traditional sense of paying customers. They make their money by what we share, as well as from advertisers or behavior market vendors. The users become the “products being sold”. Everything has become business related which in many ways seems unfair. Facebook claims to be “free” but it really isn’t.
