>“If the editors announced a 50-cent per word pay cut next week, I don’t think any of us would quit,” one contract staff writer told me, “and they know it.” [.

>“If the editors announced a 50-cent per word pay cut next week, I don’t think any of us would quit,” one contract staff writer told me, “and they know it.” [...] ... somewhat contradicts the claim in the next paragraph: >There are other consequences to the declining value of the written freelance word. The most obvious is that skilled and insightful writers will ditch the profession for greener (but arguably less prosocial) pastures. The ugly reality is that insightful writers won't quit. Or even if they do, they will be replaced by other insightful writers willing to charge $0. There have been some amazingly insightful posts written here on HN that obviously paid $0 to the poster. In contrast, some of the computer books for which I paid $39.99 were worthless. The economics of writing -- shares the same dilemma as other artistic vocations such as music composing, computer graphics drawing, film directing, etc. People would still want to do those activities even if society pays nothing. Those activities are both vocations and avocations so getting paid well isn't what drives new participants into the market. New economic participants all trying "do what they love" creates intense competition. Only a lucky few get to be paid very well. All the rest are perceived as "commodities". A janitor might fantasize about being a journalist or writing a book. But no novel writer fantasizes about being a janitor. Even white collar professions have the same envy. Many lawyers write novels on the side and quit practicing law when they have a hit (John Grisham, David Baldacci, etc). How many successful writers dream of quitting the written word so they can go to law school to become attorneys? Computer programming is one of the lucky professions where there's overlap between enjoyment and high pay. I just heard about billionaire Jim Clark (Netscape) recently programming Objective-C for his home automation system.[1] He already owns a private jet and yacht but didn't hire someone else to do the programming. A 70+ year old billionaire... programming... for fun. - $0.00 : "It was a dark and stormy night. ..." - $100k+ : printf("It was a dark and stormy night. ..."); [1] deep link: https://youtu.be/_rL1LnXo3Gs?t=1h2m32s https://youtu.be/_rL1LnXo3Gs?t=1h2m32s