I doubt it was due to network effects. I’m probably one of those top quartile potential H1-B holders that never applied. My main reason for not applying is that the random nature of the lottery reduces the RoI on finding a US job so much that it becomes rational to stay in Sweden and focus on local / remote consulting opportunities. As I understand it the way those Indian IT firms get around that is that they hire locally in India and send in applications for more staff than they want visas for. So they can get around the lottery dynamics through collective action, something I can’t do.
That used to be a common abuse vector, but that loophole was fixed last year. Apps are deduped now (1 person, 1 app). It's still a lottery that is oversubscribed by something like 3x.
How does 1 person, 1 app do anything to fix body shops flooding the zone by submitting apps for all of their employees knowing that most won’t win the lottery but whoever does they’ll ship to the US to subcontract out. All of the large Indian body shops have more employees than the cap.
Yes, that is still a problem, which is somewhat mitigated by the $200 fee to enter the lottery currently. The proposed change of giving higher odds to higher wages instead of a flat lottery is a step in the right direction.
I believe he wasn't even thinking about duplication of applications per person, but the following scenario. Correct me if I'm wrong:
Company A would like to hire 1000 qualified IT personnel. An Indian workforce provider has e.g. 10000 qualified people and would be able to get 5000 of them to apply for the visa. From those that win the lottery (e.g. 1 in 3) you would easily cover the demand of the Company A. Economy of scale works here.
