Perhaps it’s because the dreariness of mid-February has gotten to me, but stumbling upon the post I screen captured below made me sad. And worried.
The post is from a site that intends to connect the freelance community with those in need of specialized support. Someone thought a good deal is offering to pay $150 for 12,500 words of original content.
In reading the conditions, it becomes clear the person feared for the condition of the work that will come back to them. Either they’ve been burned before, or there was a twinge of guilt that seeped in as they hastily typed out the project description.
I read it, then paused to wonder how they see this piece being any help to their blog.
The really scary thing is that someone will likely accept the offer. And, considering this site allows bidding by freelancers, the project owner could get away with paying less than offered... not to mention the cut the website service takes off the top.
I consider myself a fairly efficient and productive writer, but how quickly could you pump-out 25 single-spaced instructive pages on a topic you know with shocking depth and breadth?
50 hours? 40? 25?
Sure, you could line-up shots of espresso and bang-out words without editing, attribution, research, or even coherent thought, but then what is the value of that document? And what did that do to you, as a human being?
I’m the type of person to always search for the silver lining, so let’s take a step back for the briefest of moments.
Maybe this type of site will (temporarily) starve demand for the AI systems being trained to write. Or maybe $150 is actually a good amount of money to someone. Ultimately, these kinds of web services have enabled more people to pursue their entrepreneurial spirit. But that sword also cuts the other way, simultaneously depressing the quality of content generally and incomes individually.
I’m not so naive to think this is a new phenomenon, or the most egregious example of it. I went to school for print journalism at the turn of the millennium and witnessed the mounting downward pressure on the field’s income potential within my career. The global, connected economy has only accelerated things, making my find only the latest cough from a sick patient.
I said off the top that the posting also worried me and it’s not entirely because the world seems to be in a race to the bottom. It’s more that I see no way out of said race other than to somehow come out with my own system that encourages it.
Now that is a thought in which I struggle to find the silver lining. Perhaps I’ve simply found another example of why the internet needs so many cat videos.