> Umm, slaves on a sugar plantation were brutally exploited. Kulaks in the gulag were brutally exploited. Folks who sit at their laptops and work indoors are no

> Umm, slaves on a sugar plantation were brutally exploited. Kulaks in the gulag were brutally exploited. Folks who sit at their laptops and work indoors are not brutally exploited. 1. You are making a fallacy of relative privation. Problems that aren't as bad as other problems can still be big problems. If you're merely complaining about the semantics of "brutal exploitation", very unfair payment could be considered "brutal exploitation" in the context of treating mildly unfair payment as "[merely] exploitation". (Disclaimer: I have no idea what a fair payment for writing a journalistic article for Vice is, so I don't know how fair or unfair $300 is.) 2. Improvements of working conditions since the past are by themselves a terrible argument against further improvements of working conditions.