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Friendly reminder: If this is not the internet you want, please try to support indie content producers whose work you think is decent and who take tips/Patreon/

Friendly reminder: If this is not the internet you want, please try to support indie content producers whose work you think is decent and who take tips/Patreon/et al. And if you can afford it, subscribe to online newspapers and the like (because journalism is in a world of hurt and it is negatively impacting minor little things like freedom and democracy). I blog and I take tips and Patreon and I sometimes hit the front page of HN. I make a pittance. This means that I have no real choice but to do other kinds of paid writing. So I've thought long and hard about this and I've read the stuff on HN for years where people here don't want ads on the sites they visit, don't want paywalls, don't like content marketing and "pay for play" affiliate sites, etc etc etc. And then also do not want to leave tips, support a person's Patreon, etc. If you give writers and other creatives no means to earn an adequate income trying to meet your prissy high standards for so-called ethics [1], then don't be all shocked that they will do whatever happens to actually work to line their pockets, though it involves lying, writing reviews for pay without actually ever touching the product, etc. People need to eat. Not everyone can be a programmer. Make it possible for creatives to establish a middle class income. Stop telling people like me "Writing doesn't pay. You know that. Go get a real job." and find a way to make it pay such that doing the kind of writing you want to see is what gets rewarded and not sketchy garbage. Writing does pay. It just pays for doing bad things and occasionally someone like J.K. Rowling gets stinking rich. It doesn't have to be that way. The world can decide it values good writing and that writers deserve a decent income and make choices to move the world in that direction. [1] These so-called "ethics" seem to boil down to "we expect writers to write for free and find some other means to support themselves while producing quality content as...a hobby, I guess" -- aka slave labor. And then folks get upset if you frame it that way.

kortilla 6y ago
> The world can decide it values good writing and that writers deserve a decent income It has decided. The sad truth is just that “good writing” just isn’t that valuable (as can be seen in how much people pay) if you don’t have some killer content to back it up. Good writing is requisite but not sufficient. Just because something is a sustaining profession for a few people doesn’t mean it should be for everyone who does that. Do you realize how many photographers and other artists are in the same category? > aka slave labor. Something that is voluntary is - by definition - not slave labor. Nobody is forcing you to write. There are people who effectively tweet full time. Is that “slave labor”? There are people to play games full time. Is that “slave labor”? > And then folks get upset if you frame it that way. I hope you can see why. Finally, people don’t get mad at writers because they want to make money. They get mad when the writers’ hide the fact that the money has tainted and shaped everything they are saying. A review site that is shilling products because of kickbacks corrupts the entire thing. Can you imagine your friend recommending you a doctor and then you find out that the friend actually thinks the doctor is terrible but got $1k for the referral?
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Nobody is forcing you to write. I write because it's something I can do. I'm seriously handicapped and there are a lot of things I simply cannot do. That's a lousy argument. I use myself as an example for various reasons, but the reality is this a widespread problem and the state of journalism is a real problem, as I noted above. I'm well aware of why people don't like hearing they basically want slave labor. I've listened for years to the reasons people on HN do not like ads, do not like content marketing, etc. I removed ads from my sites and I don't typically use affiliate links. I use myself as an example in hopes of elucidating the problem space and making it clear that I've studied this for years and I'm not blowing smoke. It's not just me. Writing generally has terrible pay even when it's good quality, etc. Find some way to help writers pay their bills. The fact that writers exist and that's what they know and there aren't other middle class jobs with good benefits they can readily apply for is an actual issue which negatively impacts the world. Gig work is up. Benefits are down. Lots of people are underpaid, underemployed, etc. It isn't just writers. As for medicine, our medical system is probably even more messed up than what we do to writers. We actively incentivize a system of keeping you drugged up and limping along and yadda. But I'm sure people are even less interested in hearing that than in hearing "If you don't want the shitty internet we've chosen to create, then make other choices that support some other outcome." I don't intend to spend a whole lot of time arguing it. I've been here a lot of years. I know people don't like hearing this, quickly turn to dismissive personal attacks and ugly justifications. This is hardly some original rebuttal to my points. I chose to say it anyway because I know most folks here are business people or IT people and haven't thought it through as much as I have. Each individual case of criticism of how people here don't want to support writers seems logical and not a problem in isolation. Most folks here are not on the receiving end going "Wait a minute. This is part of why I remain poor. There's no good means to get paid for what I do, though there is certainly demand for good writing." This is me telling folks I write, the world makes it really hard for writers to make ends meet, that's part of why you get certain kinds of garbage on the internet. People can do with that info what they choose, including nothing at all. I've occasionally said such things for years and it seems to make no difference. But I will likely continue to say something from time to time anyway, even though people think it's appropriate to attack me instead of taking my points seriously. And that's why I say it boils down to an expectation of slave labor because, yeah, people basically get mad at being told "this is why this goes on" rather than going "oh, I had not thought to connect those dots. I shall have to keep that in mind going forward."

kortilla 6y ago

> The world can decide it values good writing and that writers deserve a decent income It has decided. The sad truth is just that “good writing” just isn’t that valuable (as can be seen in how much people pay) if you don’t have some killer content to back it up. Good writing is requisite but not sufficient. Just because something is a sustaining profession for a few people doesn’t mean it should be for everyone who does that. Do you realize how many photographers and other artists are in the same category? > aka slave labor. Something that is voluntary is - by definition - not slave labor. Nobody is forcing you to write. There are people who effectively tweet full time. Is that “slave labor”? There are people to play games full time. Is that “slave labor”? > And then folks get upset if you frame it that way. I hope you can see why. Finally, people don’t get mad at writers because they want to make money. They get mad when the writers’ hide the fact that the money has tainted and shaped everything they are saying. A review site that is shilling products because of kickbacks corrupts the entire thing. Can you imagine your friend recommending you a doctor and then you find out that the friend actually thinks the doctor is terrible but got $1k for the referral?

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Nobody is forcing you to write. I write because it's something I can do. I'm seriously handicapped and there are a lot of things I simply cannot do. That's a lousy argument. I use myself as an example for various reasons, but the reality is this a widespread problem and the state of journalism is a real problem, as I noted above. I'm well aware of why people don't like hearing they basically want slave labor. I've listened for years to the reasons people on HN do not like ads, do not like content marketing, etc. I removed ads from my sites and I don't typically use affiliate links. I use myself as an example in hopes of elucidating the problem space and making it clear that I've studied this for years and I'm not blowing smoke. It's not just me. Writing generally has terrible pay even when it's good quality, etc. Find some way to help writers pay their bills. The fact that writers exist and that's what they know and there aren't other middle class jobs with good benefits they can readily apply for is an actual issue which negatively impacts the world. Gig work is up. Benefits are down. Lots of people are underpaid, underemployed, etc. It isn't just writers. As for medicine, our medical system is probably even more messed up than what we do to writers. We actively incentivize a system of keeping you drugged up and limping along and yadda. But I'm sure people are even less interested in hearing that than in hearing "If you don't want the shitty internet we've chosen to create, then make other choices that support some other outcome." I don't intend to spend a whole lot of time arguing it. I've been here a lot of years. I know people don't like hearing this, quickly turn to dismissive personal attacks and ugly justifications. This is hardly some original rebuttal to my points. I chose to say it anyway because I know most folks here are business people or IT people and haven't thought it through as much as I have. Each individual case of criticism of how people here don't want to support writers seems logical and not a problem in isolation. Most folks here are not on the receiving end going "Wait a minute. This is part of why I remain poor. There's no good means to get paid for what I do, though there is certainly demand for good writing." This is me telling folks I write, the world makes it really hard for writers to make ends meet, that's part of why you get certain kinds of garbage on the internet. People can do with that info what they choose, including nothing at all. I've occasionally said such things for years and it seems to make no difference. But I will likely continue to say something from time to time anyway, even though people think it's appropriate to attack me instead of taking my points seriously. And that's why I say it boils down to an expectation of slave labor because, yeah, people basically get mad at being told "this is why this goes on" rather than going "oh, I had not thought to connect those dots. I shall have to keep that in mind going forward."