Philip Greenspun’s Why I’m Not a Writer and Hacker News

jseliger.com

9 points·jseliger··4 comments

The advantage the web gives to writers is that it drastically the reduces the barriers to becoming a publisher and reaching a massive audience. The writers who take advantage of this are the ones who benefit from the web, while those who don't are worse off than before. The web doesn't cut out the middle man automatically, but it makes it a lot easier for writers ambitious and savvy enough to do so.

... and the disadvantage is that it might be becoming even more difficult to make money as a writer than it used to be.

Nice gold rush analogy, selling the tools seems like the best deal; although how that pans out for the smaller open source projects is still quite risky. It's still the lucky few who make the money.

"although how that pans out for the smaller open source projects is still quite risky."

Yeah -- my theory doesn't account well for that issue. But during the boom, it seems that the people who really raked in the money (real money, not inflated stock options) were the Suns, Dells, and Herman Millers of the world more than the Yahoos and Pets.coms of the world.

Today, it's still probably better to be Microsoft or Apple or Wordpress than someone who's trying to make it as a writer by producing words on a MacBook Pro and posting them on a Wordpress blog, except in some circumstances noted elsewhere (like you're a consultant who partially uses a blog as advertising and to establish expertise).

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