I pay to access content on Medium and that money (some of it at least) goes to the writers whose content I read. Medium provides writers a vehicle to make money writing pretty much whatever they want. Naturally, this is not out of the goodness of their hearts but because they get a big chunk of the profits. Only 8% of us make over $100 a month on Medium. That’s a lot of free or nearly free labor.

Unfortunately, since writers, actors, artists, and other creatives are so desperate to get their stuff out there, there are legions willing to do it for next to nothing. Vocal and other platforms take full advantage of this. It’s such a profitable business model that the only people paying for subscriptions on Vocal are the writers.

Corporations get more and more free labor every day. Restaurant and product reviews, marketing research, and content creation are things they no longer have to pay for. They’ve even gotten us to check out and bag our own groceries.