There is some political name-calling in his post, but Stacy McCain does make one valid point about blogging.
If you are going to work for free, why build someone else’s reputation rather than your own?
I know two people who were writing for The Huffington Post—the site that owner Arianna Huffington has now sold for millions of dollars. As the man said, they got played, she got paid.
Now some of them are suing. But as they have no contracts promising payment, what are their chances?
Another colleague at the university started blogging at Daily Kos. So big deal, you have a “diary” buried deep in the site. You are building Markos Moulitsas’ reputation, not your own. Your “diary” exists only at his whim—regardless of what the site says about “community.”
Yes, I did have a blog at BeliefNet at one time—it was the feed from this one—but they purged it for, apparently, religious incorrectness. I would not go back, nor to the rival religion portal, Patheos.
If you are a blogger—in love with the sound of your own typing—independence is the main fringe benefit.
UPDATE: Law-blogger Eugene Volokh says (tongue in cheek) that we are all exploiting commenters.
UPDATE 2: Is the Huffington business model really piracy?
Oh for heaven’s sake. I wouldn’t join the class action suit because I think Tasini is a self-serving hypocrite, and also because I don’t think the suit has merit. I was under no delusions about who Arianna was from the moment I got a gig writing for HuffPo: Arianna is a mogul now, and was vying for the title all along. She’s arrogant, sure; she could have avoided a lot of bad press by throwing bloggers a bone when she landed that great deal with AOL. But that’s not how moguls think.
I also reject the idea that no blogger should blog on someone else’s platform. Facebook is someone else’s platform, HuffPost is too, and so are Twitter and LinkedIn. I use all of them, and through them I’m building an audience that goes to my blog(s) to read what I have to say. I’ll use any tool that I think will forward my own goals, for as long as it serves the purpose. Anyone who thinks there’s a contradiction between blogger independence and making use of popular platforms is being a little too purist for my tastes.
Remuniration…Is blogging its own reward? Or something we do for pay? And as money gets more involved, who gets a cut? Should Pagan bloggers pray to the Deities of SEO?