Unpaid Interns are Exploited?

An internship should provide mutual advantage: the intern should learn skills or a body of knowledge he/she did not have before, the employer should get some work done, and perhaps have a chance to evaluate the intern for future hiring. I'd say it's fine not to pay a part-time intern who is given the chance to learn a lot.

"Please. A few years ago, my old employer, ABC, started paying our interns. That was good for well-connected students who got internships, but bad for those who were turned down. ABC cut the number of interns by more than half. There's no free lunch."

"Well-connected interns", then, replaced interns who could afford to work for no pay. Why do I doubt that the latter were less well connected.

"Minimum-wage law and union rules already killed off apprentice jobs on construction sites. Contractors say: If I must pay high union wages, I'll hire experienced workers. I'd lose money if I hired a kid and helped him learn on the job."

Contractors say, why should I pay union wages when I can pick up a guy at the Home Depot parking lot. Not quite the same thing.