More than just tech
This whole outsourcing for sub-human wages actually extends far and wide through western civilization. Most ad building these days is being done in India. Publishing houses sell the ads, but everything is shifted (images, text files, etc) to India, where very low paid workers assemble the ads. Once the ad is built, the entire pdf is electronically shipped back to the publishing house where it gets dropped into the page layout and published. Most of the ad builders have a private website where the ad buyer and publisher can view pages and accept/decline/recommend changes on the fly.
Same thing for the legal profession. Many law firms (particularly the large ones) employee researchers in India (and other countries) to go though case law records to find the material they need for their cases.
We all already know about call centers. Having had to support publishing for a time, I had to deal with Quark on a regular basis. Call center was in India, and it was pure torture trying to get authentication codes for upgrades over the phone - the codes were 48 characters in length.
Even McDonalds did some market tests where the drive-through order taker was actually in a foreign call center. The customer would place the order, which was then pushed to the local McDs to complete. The idea was dropped (at least for now) due to customer unhappiness with accent issues.
ABC News did a story not too long ago about the foreign product content in our homes. They would pick just one room and then remove everything made/assembled overseas. Guess what? The one episode I saw only one item was left in the room. So much of our day-to-day stuff is made overseas in sweatshops that the average consumer probably can't even begin to comprehend it. So before casting that first stone, check around your house.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
