According to tradition, you can have work that is fast and cheap, cheap and good, or fast and good. You cannot, however, have work that embodies all three traits. Something is necessarily lost in seeking one of the attributes.
Fast work can be good work, but the speed is usually determined by past, tedious work. It’s similar to running or playing the piano. To become a faster runner or to play the scales faster, you have to plod miles and plunk the keys.
Cheap work can be good work, too, but the worker eventually becomes aware of how good the work is and begins to charge accordingly. Then again, “cheap” may mean that only one person has to be hired instead of two. The work is cheaper in such an instance; paying for quality at the outset brings its own return longterm.
Fast and cheap work is just that. It’s cheap to purchase, but so is the quality. It’s done in haste with no thought to the excellence of it. It’s work to be churned out and propagated to the masses. Unfortunately, such work rarely brings the results desired. Cheap work is noticeably cheap, and it sinks into oblivion. It does not rise to the top. It does not attract attention. It’s cheap and fast, and so is the attention – if any – given to it.
Image: Oliver Hammond (Creative Commons)