Vinh continues:

Whether it takes another ten or twenty or thirty years, as technology further shrinks the world and other markets shore up their ability to produce substantive designers, it’s my bet that the world at large will catch up with the cozy, affluent market that Western designers enjoy today. The clock of globalization is ticking for us.

It is hardly the only possibility that the rest of the world will catch up with Western salaries. It is equally, if not more, likely that compensation for design in the West will fall to match the rest of the world, except at the largest of companies that can afford boutique pricing and solutions. In the short to mid-term, the industry will consolidate, converging around a few big winners while the middle of the market implodes. If commoditization can happen in the app development industry, it most certainly can happen in the design industry.

In his book, How They Got There, Vinh explains "Once I came to accept that career certainty is now a thing of the past (if it ever existed), I came to a new appreciation for the beauty of career uncertainty" (12). It should be a troubling sign for the industry when a designer with Vinh’s experience feels that careers in design are bound to become increasingly insecure. Vinh himself may not have a hard time finding employment, but he is sympathetic to the issues that industry designers may come to face. In his book, Vinh and those he interviews provide insights that often fail to be addressed when it comes to discussions about a field in flux.

Automated tools and outsourcing are not going away, nor should they. It would be ignorant to argue in favor of banning tools that simplify the design process in this way. In fact, when put in the hands of a professional designer, these tools and services can sometimes be quite useful. Ultimately, one must simply recognize this competition for what it provides non-specialists: generic, undifferentiated and often shoddily-made solutions.

Forming a connection between flat design and the economic forces of automation and globalization may seem a strange juxtaposition. It is true that the two are not themselves related, but the quality of design they inspire is quite similar. Moreover, the expectations they set for what qualifies as good design in the minds of clients are similar. Clients cannot be blamed for drawing improper conclusions about the value of design when it is commoditized.

It is not clear what the future of visual design holds. What is clear is that the industry is experiencing a significant amount of turbulence. One would hope that design educators and industry leaders would respond to moments of uncertainty like these as opportunities for education, rather than equivocation. They could offer colleagues the language to confidently and respectfully engage clients who question their design process in the face of subpar, automated and cheap solutions. We could help inexperienced and veteran designers alike educate clients about the difference between cookie-cutter design and the custom-tailored solutions that professional design practitioners offer. One part of this strategy would involve moving towards encouraging designs that are more visually stimulating than the designs operating system makers offer. More generally, this would involve imparting subtle strategies for communicating design's importance to clients. None of this will stop automation or globalization, but it is still a worthy effort to undertake.

Unfortunately, instead of taking a proactive approach to these important matters, what many industry leaders have chosen to do is tell their fellow visual designers to self-sabotage and embrace these changes because they posit these are not threats to anyone but an amateur. On the other hand, if flat design were not a threat to any segment in the design industry, then why has there been so much handwringing about it? Ignoring the major aesthetic and usability implications, why does flat design remain to this day such a compelling topic for discussion when it comes to the business side of design? Upon further examination, the adoption of flat design has caused a profound shift, and it is unwise for designers to ignore it.

We must ask ourselves what it says when many industry leaders are as optimistic as ever about the prospects for the visual design industry in the face of credible threats, both internal and external. It may seem strange, but there is an obvious explanation for why so few leaders seem interested in providing substantive analysis of these shifts. I will explore this explanation in the conclusion to Fall of the Designer.