I agree. I know it was discussed ad nauseam all over the web but I wish he would've addressed it a little more in this post. He mentions being upset that they didn't develop "one" community but it's difficult to be surprised by that when he basically built a system that thrived on abusing the "one" community it wanted to foster (intentional or not).

Powazek mentions "We underestimated the “spec work” issue." You mention "the tiresome spec work debate". Not having followed Pixish previously, can someone give a nutshell summary of this debate/festering issue?

"Spec work" refers to speculative work. A client will ask one or more designers to each submit one or more designs with no guarantee of getting paid unless their work is selected as the winning bid.

It should not be confused with pro bono work, where the work is unpaid but the relationship between client and designer is transparent.

The practice is by no means limited to the design industry, but due to the nature of work involved, is where it is most rampant.

a good run through of the arguments is here: http://www.no-spec.com/

some of the arguments for and against can be found in the comments of this post on signal vs. noise by crowdspring http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1253-the-nospec-campaign-...