I was also at AOL in the early Weblogs, Inc. days. While we didn't look at ourselves as content farmers the same way you'd look at demand media, I definitely think the $4/post model has it's benefits. For me, it was an incentive to go through a large body of work fairly quickly. Thanks to my work at Engadget too, I was able to get a crash course in technology journalism from the master (Peter Rojas).<p>I often think of Weblogs, Inc. as a sort of freak of startup nature. Very little funding, but the company had a huge impact, especially on its acquirer. AOL's core publishing technology platform is Blogsmith, Weblogs, Inc.'s home grown CMS, not to mention how Engadget, Autoblog and other influential Weblogs, Inc. blogs have given other AOLers insight into what good content looks like.<p>As Marshall mentions in the post, I'm wondering where the new minor leagues are. I'd guess just being a regular contributor to Hacker News might be as close as there is right now.