George Bush, Demand Studios and Fuzzy Math
It's been a while since I've blogged about the content mills, and since then my least favorite offender, DS, went public. You did all know that, right? If not, I can post the article about it for you all to groan over.
Mostly I like to observe the heated debates from afar, but I still have my feelers up for rumblings within this vile writing segment that gives professional writing a bad name. It's quite a few months old now, but I found this article particularly interesting: Demand Media Uses Fancy Math to Support Aggressive Accounting.
Thoughts?
Labels: content mills
posted by Irreverent Freelancer @ 8:42 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I keep thinking one morning I will wake up, dopey Demand and all the rich boys will be a bad dream, places will pay, they will respond to emails, they will say good job when you turn something in... Then the gray light seeps in the window and I am still on earth.
I remember that math. It still reminds me of the fuzzy math Enron used, posting future profits as current profits. Look where that got them.
All we can hope for is this lawsuit by writers against Huffington Post will scare the bejeezuz out of writers and content mills alike. Mind you, writers who work for free or damned near free are as foolish as the people who employ them, but if they can raise awareness among other writers (and themselves) by asking for $105 million, amen.
Uh, yeah, that's groan, not grown. Thank you to my astute reader for catching my groan-able (or grown-able) typo.
That's a nice dream, adsensestar!
Lori, I have a feeling the whole Huffington Post thing will be making an appearance here soon. I'm doubtful they'll win, but at least it's raising awareness about the issue.
I love your site and the name “Screw You” it’s a fitting phrase for the insanity a freelance writer finds when looking for work. My frustration is increasing daily. I am a talented writer and I’m tired of being polite about being offered a pittance for my skill. My time is valuable and I take pride in producing quality work. The amount of pay for freelance writing is laughable but also extremely sad. An employer thinks nothing of offering a wage amount that would be appalling even in Dickens’s time.
I am college educated and articulate. It is insulting to ask me to spend three hours researching a topic and then write 500 words about it for the grand total of $4 to $15. Oh, I know you think that by saying you will pay $15 an hour you believe that it’s possible to write something in an hour that doesn’t sound like a second grader research and wrote it. Please just let me offer to write for free, or I’m so grateful that you want to hire me let me pay you.
As writer’s, we need to band together and say, “Screw you” because we’re worth more.
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