That’s the conclusion that two sociologists came to after observing seven hackathons over the period of one year, reports Wired. In “Hackathons As Co-optation Ritual: Socializing Workers and Institutionalizing Innovation in the ‘New’ Economy,” sociologists Sharon Zukin and Max Papadantonakis argue that companies use the allure of hackathons to get people to work for free. They say sponsors fuel the “romance of digital innovation by appealing to the hackers’ aspiration to be multi-dimensional agents of change” when in fact the hackathons are just a means of labor control.