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02/08/11 (LWN-Commentary) The Huffington Post has been sold to Internet service provider America Online (AOL) for $315 million dollars. Though primarily known as a Democratic Party aligned political opinion website, Huffington Post has also branched into subjects like travel, technology, and entertainment.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post has over 6,000 contributors who are not compensated for their work. While it is one thing to accept political opinion pieces for free, not paying for articles on subjects like travel, business, health, and technology is especially exploitative. It devalues the work of writers who need to make a living.
Since the website would not exist without writers, perhaps they deserve a cut of this $315 million. Let Arianna keep $15,000,000 and divide the remaining $300 million by 6,000. Thus the writers deserve about $50,000 each. So often the people essential to keeping businesses running are treated as expendable.
What can writers learn from this story? Don't write for free, someone might be getting rich off it.
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