Huffington Post Politics icon competition: Not the expected reaction.

huffingtonpost.com

3 pointsjamesbritt2 comments

Why is it that designers have managed to make this the accepted (and expected) reaction to this kind of exploitative stunt, but not writers?

There was a small kerfuffle over HuffPo's treatment of volunteer contributors back when Aol bought them, but it seems to have fallen completely off the radar.

Is it just a matter of publicity and convincing everyone in the field not to do free work? Or do we as a society really value the written word that much less?

(For the record I support both designers and writers getting paid enough to make a living on their work. To borrow from Mike Monteiro: "Fuck you. Pay me.")

I wonder if it's because of the difference in how one can "make it" as a a writer versus as a designer. For example a writer can get paid gigs doing weekly or monthly columns; I'm unaware of anything similar for designers, whose output typically works in supporting roles.

Writers may feel the potential for abuse is worth it because once you have public attention you can plausibly go off on your own. Less so (if at all) for designers, who are generally at the mercy of an intermediary.

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