Unfortunately this is what the companies that pay for content pay for, to the extent that if you do better you would get penalized either by not getting as much

Unfortunately this is what the companies that pay for content pay for, to the extent that if you do better you would get penalized either by not getting as much money or not getting published at all, and obviously she wants to make money from the effort she put into writing it. Which I'm guessing still took half a day's worth of work what with incidental stuff like sending off emails and answering editors etc. Since Gizmodo probably paid 400 dollars for this that's a pretty good rate, but how many other things did she spend time writing that didn't get bought? So - in the end - this is the quality we end up with, which ironically relates to another recent HN frontpager https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41547773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41547773 Don't see a way out of it. The best one can hope for is that she writes a second piece - a week with hi-tech bifocals - and manages to sell that one too.