David Carr frets, “For those of us who make a living typing, it’s all very scary, of course. It’s less about the diminution of authority and expertise, although there is that, and more about the growing perception that content is a commodity, and one that can be had for the price of zero.”
While Arianna Huffington appears to be on the verge of cashing in for $315 million and enormous valuations are thrown about for Facebook and the like, Carr makes the point in his New York Times piece , “The funny thing about all these frothy millions and billions piling up? Most of the value was created by people working free.”
Carr rightly calls this a Tom Sawyer moment for media. “’Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?’ he says to his friends, and sure enough, they are soon lined up for the privilege of doing his chores.”
Andy Kessler writes in his new book Eat People that intelligence exists at the edge of the network. Provide a platform and people will create for free, driving down the cost. He advises entrepreneurs to harness this power. Ms. Huffington hitched her wagon to this strategy long ago and now AOL is ready to make her wealthier.
“I really don’t care that Arianna made all that money,” said Mayhill Fowler. “More power to her. The original premise was not that we would get paid, so I didn’t expect to. But after the election and the fact that they nominated my work for a Pulitzer, I thought that might change. I talked to Arianna about getting paid for my work, and she strung me along for two years and then it never happened.”
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Good grief; you’d think she’s some sort of greedy capitalist or something…
You can read all of her works about the total failure and evil of capitalism on her new website for only $5.99 a month!
LOL!
Given that property rights emerge out of scarcity, should they not vaporize as content becomes ubiquitous?
Key words: “Provide a platform”. Maybe he’s envious he couldn’t do it. And maybe people shouldn’t be such rubes as to provide all that knowledge for free.
I think this trend is going to see a chasm form between pieces created by few “experts” who are reimbursed for their contribution (maybe paid to do a little research and make their pieces a little longer than the digest version) and more pieces written by the “masses” who are free to contribute as long as they don’t expect compensation. Naturally, the latter won’t have the clout or the air snob de expert the former might, but at the same time, it’d be packaged more like an editorial.
That’s what I see on the horizon.
Every Huffington Post blogger puts “Huffington Post blogger” on their resume.It’s not like they’re getting nothing out of it. Indeed, if they think what they get out of it is not worth their time then they’re free to stop writing there.
I used “their,” “they’re” and “there” in one coherent sentence. Give me millions of dollars!!!
I don’t write for free, but I do write for very little, compared to traditional print articles. The reason I do it is exposure. It’s the intangibles that make it satisfying work for me and probably for others. The content farming has hurt some of the better bloggers by burying them a bit, but it also makes it easier for really good content to stand out, in some cases.
The value of HP comes from traffic, and the traffic comes overwhelmingly from paid pieces, not unpaid bloggers: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-economics-of-blogging-and-the-huffington-post/.
Well, that’s what you get for trusting a leftist.
And they keep telling us they’re the smart ones.
Doesn’t that rather prove the point — that the person getting you to work for free for two years is smarter than you?
No. The writer is a lefty too, and thus easily duped.
Keeping a blog in the public view is work. It’s one thing when we’re all starving, but for Arianna to make money and not let it trickle down isn’t right.
If they don’t want to work for free, maybe they should stop submitting there?
I think the National Labor Relations Board should step in and adjudicate a fair distribution of Huffington’s ill-gotten profits.
I highly recommend the book, “Eat People” by Andy Kessler. I am currently reading this book and it is definately a keeper. It should be required reading prior to graduating from the dumb downed public school system.
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