Recently, I wrote about the phenomenon of writers complaining about not being paid for their work by saying if you’re a professional writer, producing professional-grade work, you’ll get paid work. Because we do, actually, live in a world where vocational aptitude can and will be rewarded (most of the time). Most people will brains prefer the work of professionals, even when a service technically could be done by an amateur.
The non-controversy of writing for free
There’s been a bit of buzz round the internet over the past few days about the apocalyptic scenario in which we writers find ourselves. Some people don’t want to pay us, it seems, and some people are all in a huff about it.
It seems to have been kicked off by a New York Times opinion column titled, “Slaves of the Internet Unite.” So it’s pretty clear where that piece landed. It was funny, clever and established the skill and experience of the writer says he is constantly barraged with requests for free content. I found him charming, but his argument started going south for me around here:
Natalie Burg 