Child Labor, Scrip, and Tech
The age of digital shamelessness might be coming to an end as people realize its problems
In a fascinating discussion on a recent podcast, Scott Galloway and Ed Elson discussed Roblox, a platform where most of the users are minors. Here, users design and create new games for the platform, earning “Robux,” or scrip they can spend on the platform. The company benefits by having new games created, keeping current users and attracting new ones.
Roblox makes money via monthly paid membership plans, in addition to many other revenue streams.
As the two hosts point out, if this were the real world, Roblox would be doing two dubious things — engaging in what one might consider child labor, and paying such laborers only in scrip (a “house” currency valid only at the employer’s store). Payment in scrip was a practice outlawed in the US in 1938, and long ago in the UK.
Yet, here we are, giving a technology platform a free pass on two otherwise socially repugnant issues — kids working for large corporations, and payment in scrip — because, well, it’s technology.
The double-standards around Big Tech are rife, and this is just the latest example.