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MattG comments on Can You Give Support or Feedback for My Program to Alleviate Poverty? - Less Wrong
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There's definitely a market there - as you clearly are aware (from mentioning upwork) there's a booming market in these types of remote work arbitrage opportunities.
I'm curious what you expect your value to be over and above what these online freelance companies are already doing. Is your non-profit's goal essentially to be marketers for these companies, letting people in less advantaged countries know that these opportunities exist?
The next question would be - how well are these companies ALREADY attracting poverty stricken people. Every person I've hired from upwork, when I asked them how they got into it, specifically mentioned trying to alleviate their own poverty. From that perspective, your non-profit could be creating the illusion of progress - helping raise the people you work with in belize out of poverty, while simultaneously taking jobs from other, poverty stricken people in EG india.
The nature of wage markets means the jobs would tend to go to the worst-off people who can take the jobs, whose wage demands would be lowest, as they'd have the most to gain from a given wage (that is, they'd take the job for less money, because the money is more valuable to them). This isn't a bad thing, although it's usually presented as one, particularly by those whose wages would be undercut.
(This doesn't consider market barriers or interference, granted; for one example, a mountain village might have the most to gain, but be unable to offer competitive labor pricing owing to the cost of providing infrastructure.)
Yes, exactly. The point of my comment being, that to the extent that the current freelance websites represent this theoretical perfect market, Brendon_Wong's idea will only be a feel good idea, while not actually creating any change.
However, if he can identify market inefficiencies (such as highly skilled, foreign workers not being hired due to asymmetric information, or the poorest workers not knowing about these opportunities), or as you pointed out, remove market barriers, he can actually make the natural market forces more efficient, and do some good.
Ultimately, the gains from these types of interventions are probably relatively small - he'd have to put very little resources in them and be extremely efficient to do a net good.
Well the total pool of work available for everyone is imperceptibly decreased in the short run, not aversely affecting anyone to any significant degree, while giving more of the poor who really need the money work opportunities... Is employing several dozen more people a small net good? I guess it's a matter of opinion.