I got invited to write for the Huffington Post today

<i>the class of people who own the world and control all the assets may finally begin to see the error of their ways</i><p>Their ways? Arianna Huffington didn&#x27;t cause the current epidemic of narcissism making people willing to write for free to stroke their ego as he aptly noted. She also didn&#x27;t inherit HuffPo so all that talk about socialism and inheritance tax is just more signalling on the author&#x27;s part. Which is why they chose him.<p><i>If some street hustler challenges you to a game of three card monte you don&#x27;t need to bother to play, just hand him the money, not because you&#x27;re going to lose but because you owe him for the insight: he selected you.</i>[1]<p>He owes them an article on cancer, I believe.<p>[1] <a href="http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thelastpsychiatrist.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;dove.html</a>

Good for the writer. I have written for Hufpo once before and soon I realized how their model works:<p>1 - get free content from the writers.<p>2 - get free marketing and traffic from the writers (who tell their friends and follower about their article they&#x27;ve just posted on the Hufpo)<p>Most of the articles you write are all hidden in some sub-pages that no one but your friends or google seo would ever find.<p>edit: formatting.

I agree with the writer&#x27;s points that HuffPo seems like a pretty bad deal for the writer; but honestly how different is that from HN? Ignoring the fact that HN makes no money; the product they offer is obviously desirable or people would stop visiting. Therefore, it is worth something.<p>A large portion of the top content on HN comes from peoples&#x27; personal blogs. While these blogs often run ads, I seriously doubt those ads provide much income beyond covering the hosting bills. So people are obviously willing to write for free.<p>HuffPo realized there was a market opportunity in connecting people who were writing for free anyway with an audience for their content. I guess my biggest problem with their business model is that the offer <i>seems</i> like a freelance writing gig and could obviously dupe someone who doesn&#x27;t ask the right questions.<p>So in the end I don&#x27;t really have a problem with their business model, but their approach to sourcing content seems a bit disingenuous. If they were more up-front about the lack of payment, I would have less of a problem with this.

The same guy contacted me and I&#x27;ve submitted a couple of pieces since. He was very upfront and clear about what was being offered, i.e. submit the things you&#x27;re writing anyway to us, and subject to editorial discretion they may be featured on some hugely-trafficked section, else just archived on &quot;the blog&quot;.<p>For doing this they offer you a small profile with various links: to your amazon books, your website, twitter, an RSS feed as well as the &quot;exposure&quot; and (ever decreasing in value) bragging rights of writing (well, blogging) for the Huffington Post. You give them doctored versions of the blog posts you&#x27;re writing anyway with a slight risk of hurting your own SEO.<p>I think everyone is privy to their business model but IMO it&#x27;s win-win unless you&#x27;re in a position where others are already keen to pay for your work.

Not related,but I would like to mention this regardless:<p>&gt;&gt;No party will suggest the rational solutions: if hard work makes us rich, let’s tax inheritance at 85%, so the children of rich men have to work hard too. But no: that would never do<p>I never understood this argument. I am not rich by any means,but why would my children have to pay 85% on things that I want to leave them?? It&#x27;s idiotic - I worked hard to earn those things,why would the government want 85% of their value?? On what basis and logical reason? To make my children &quot;less lazy&quot; by doing so?? They can mind their own children - I will mind mine.

I can not stress this enough: NEVER work for free. Don&#x27;t do unpaid internships. Also try to avoid selling yourself under value (hint: you are probably worth at least twice you could imagine). Ever had someone accept your demanded rate without negotiating? You know you must ask for more next time.<p>Besides owing it to yourself, working for less than your right wage will harm your industry.

I can understand the frustration of the author, however, HuffPo is not a government or social entity. It IS part of the free market. I am a huge proponent of the free market, however, that does not mean the free market will be perfect. In the short term, there are fits and starts and cycles that everything goes through, but it is only through the free market that we will progress over the long-term.<p>Writers are unfortunately caught up in one of these free-market tornadoes, and to survive, they need to transform.<p>The author, instead of looking at this as &quot;writing for free&quot;, should look at this as an opportunity to create his personal platform. HuffPo is paying him by giving access to their audience. It is up to him to take advantage of that. Yes, it&#x27;s not easy, but it&#x27;s reality.

<i>I then researched how long people typically last writing for the Daily Show (about 6 weeks)</i><p>This seems awfully short. Can anyone shed some light on why this is the case?

&quot;<i>The wealthiest families in the UK are those of the Earl of Cadogan and the Duke of Westminster, both of which inherited ownership of prime London real estate. They have done nothing to develop that real estate, nothing to earn it, and their ownership benefits absolutely nobody except for themselves. In fact, their total control pushes housing costs so high that the entire nation has become indebted to pay excessive mortgage costs, simply to protect their ownership of land that is, in national and global terms, economically dormant.</i>&quot;<p>This is completely true, apparently. I was just listening to an <i>Economist</i> podcast episode on real estate in London. Existing housing property cannot be redeveloped for higher density because the existing long-term leases do not come up for renewal at the same time and must be renewable. On the other hand, the freeholder (the one actually owning the property) is in theory responsible for infrastructure but is apparently free from that responsibility in practice.<p>London sounds worse than San Francisco.

Great blog, very enlightening write up.<p>for as far as I could figure out...<p>If a for-profit business seeks to employ you without financial compensation they are breaking the law. If you offer your services below minimum wage you are breaking the law. If the worker&#x27;s services are an integral part of the employer&#x27;s business the worker is an employee of that company. If the role isn&#x27;t an essential functions of the company you could be a contractor.<p>Either way you must pay wages.<p>Or can the text on pages like these be stretched to say exactly the opposite of what it says?<p>us: <a href="http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dol.gov&#x2F;elaws&#x2F;esa&#x2F;flsa&#x2F;docs&#x2F;volunteers.asp</a><p><pre><code> Under the FLSA, employees may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers. </code></pre> uk: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-interns" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;employment-rights-for-interns</a><p><pre><code> Employers can’t avoid paying the National Minimum Wage if it’s due by: saying or stating that it doesn’t apply making a written agreement saying someone isn’t a worker or that they’re a volunteer </code></pre> The netherlands: <a href="http://www.belastingtips.nl/zakelijk/aftrekbare_kosten/vergoeding_voor_vrijwilliger/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.belastingtips.nl&#x2F;zakelijk&#x2F;aftrekbare_kosten&#x2F;vergo...</a><p><pre><code> Vrijwilliger verricht werkzaamheden voor een organisatie zonder winstoogmerk. De organisatie mag geen (bedrijf) B.V. of N.V. zijn, tenzij sportvereniging. De vrijwilliger verricht het werk niet als zijn beroep. </code></pre> translation: Must be a no-profit, must not be the same work as your paid job. You may help relatives for free as long as you are not getting social support.<p>I&#x27;m curious now, how does Hufington Post (New York) do it?

I write free articles only for marketing, and only on sites that will give me traffic that makes it worth my time.<p>This means that such sites will get only thinky veiled marketing.

Scalzi&#x27;s thoughts on the matter [1] are a classic entry into this genre and make for an enjoyable read.<p>[1] <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/09/a-note-to-you-should-you-be-thinking-of-asking-me-to-write-for-you-for-free/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;whatever.scalzi.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;09&#x2F;a-note-to-you-should-y...</a>

I wouldn&#x27;t pay him either. I got bored after the second paragraph.<p>Before you downvote: I have hired hundreds of writers in my time, and am currently paying out hundreds of dollars&#x2F;day to content creators at <a href="http://newslines.org/newslines-rewards/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;newslines.org&#x2F;newslines-rewards&#x2F;</a>

I sympathize and share the author&#x27;s dislike of this particular business model, however, I am fairly certain the Huffpo staffer addressed didn&#x27;t read past the first paragraph.

Did you ask money to prove a point or just to stroke more your ego?

By the same logic the author shouldn&#x27;t tweet for free either.