Neo indentured labour - in the form of “stay or pay” - or work until you’ve paid us back employment contacts (for influencers stuck in “farms” in Asia, or American immigrant workers tied into open-ended pay back clauses) - makes one question the “right” or freedom of contract - where such contracts remove our freedom to, well, contract.
Again - it’s that freedom vs security (or “temporal” security vs freedom) trade off.
Should teenagers be able to sell themselves into a lifetime of low to negative ROI student debt?
Should contract creators be allowed to contract into content farm serfdom?
And should employers be allowed to recoup recruitment as well as training costs in a competitive labour market?
What does this sort of signal signify in terms of where power balances lie between contract parties?
Do exit clauses with costs even work - in marriages or employment deals? (In my own case at least - I can attest they do not - 😅 personally the price of my freedom is more than my current net work and I still think I scored a good deal!!)
Can *you* even put a price on freedom?
Or do people just enter into these contracts knowing / thinking they can be broken and the costs paid by some third party? (Eg with American student loans…)
And should we be required to purchase freedom *willingly* signed away?
You tell me - and while you’re at it, let me know if a costly exit clause has affected your behaviour (or the behavior of someone you tried to keep…)
Read more :
Read more:
42,000 USD to stop selling yourself : https://restofworld.org/2024/china-livestream-agencies-exploiting-influencers/
Stay or pay up : https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/20/magazine/stay-pay-employer-contract.html
Influencer farms :
How to get people to stay without threatening or charging them : https://fluxtrends.com/salon/leading-through-ending-and-beginnings-a-flux-trends-salon/
Should you be allowed to sell your own soul?