Hypocrisy on the Left
Folks on the Left are the first ones to point out that people are overly obsessed with money. Money (they would argue) is far less important than, say, self-improvement.
So why is it that it is impossible for progressives to understand that someone might be willing to work for something other than money? For the skills, or the experience, or the resume fodder, or even, in this case, for ego?
I don't write for Huffington, but I do write for Forbes.com which appears to be pursuing a similar model (mix of paid and unpaid bloggers). You know how much money I get paid? Zero. Any time I get tired of writing for zero dollars, I can quit. But I have not because I get lots of things out of the relationship -- a new audience, experience trying to meet a regular deadline (that's not as easy as it seems from the outside), and an ego boost. Heck, far from feeling exploited, all the folks who have learned of my relationship with Forbes have thought I was lucky to have the opportunity. And I am.
People blog for free all the time -- I have done it for 7 years (gulp!) at this site. The author at the link seems to feel that the fact Huffington or Forbes makes money from our writing somehow makes a difference. Why? My web host makes more money from my blog than I do, but should I care?
Besides, my understanding is that CPM's on news-related sites run in the $10 range, plus or minus. At Forbes, there are 2 ads on the page and my posts get 1000-4000 viewers (with a few outliers). So that's, what, $20-80 at most and probably less? The five or ten bucks a week I might extract from them for my work is trivial compared the the other benefits I enjoy. And I can't believe the average Huffpo unpaid blogger is really contributing a lot more. Ariana may be making millions, but the incremental contribution of the 419th unpaid blogger to that is trivial.
Postscript: By the way, the linked writer also displays one of the more abusive mindsets of the labor movement. He implies that other progressives are essentially crossing a picket line by writing for free at Huffpo and should be ashamed of themselves.
That's a crock. One or two folks declaring they are on strike does not suddenly obligate hundreds of others who like the relationship they have with the Huffpo to stop writing. The author is essentially demanding a heckler's veto.
