I think you&#x27;re right in one regard, it will induce a race to the bottom amongst larger companies going this way.<p>Quality is going to decrease over time. Lay offs mean the loss of institutional knowledge, team experience, internal quality standards, business relationships, inter-team relationships etc. etc. etc. that let them get things done. The new teams will be riding any technical capital left behind by the old guard for a while but I&#x27;ll predict it&#x27;ll run into problems by the 5yr mark. Costs will skyrocket as projects take more time, work processes have to be rebuilt, relationships start from scratch, etc.<p>In terms of the bottom line, it looks good now, but they&#x27;re going to be paying for it later. Either in higher costs to the contractors to fulfill projects OR paying consultants and internal teams absurd money to fix technical debt. It will happen. It&#x27;s cost shifting.<p>Edit: The other thing I forgot to add is loss of ownership. Shifting IT&#x2F;development staff to contractors is going to decrease the sense of ownership in the project which means the level of care and concern about the success of the project are going to decline. Yes, it&#x27;s an intangible and an important one. If I own something and feel like my work on it is necessary for success, I&#x27;ll put in the work to do it right and set it up for success. Contractors will build to the contract and everything else is an add-on that costs more. Want that plugin for a new feature an internal dev would have built in as run of course because they see a future need? That&#x27;ll cost you another 4 weeks of contract developer time because it wasn&#x27;t in scope of contract.