Still, I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy.
Sort of. If you're a journalist working for a media company, from the viewpoint of the media company, the value you're producing isn't your content, except indirectly. The direct value you produce is in attracting eyeballs, and hence ad revenue. So if your goal is to produce value with your content and get paid for that, you're not going to achieve that goal working for a media company, except as a lucky side effect.
If you're self-employed and being supported by your readers (say, by Patreon contributions), then you are producing value with your content, directly. That was my understanding of the goal of the author of the article.
> I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you pick some topic of controversy.
You can't guarantee no blowback if you pick a controversial topic no matter how you are getting paid. The difference is in how that plays out. If you work for a media company, your future depends on the people running the media company and whether they will support you. If you work for yourself, your future depends on your readers and whether they will support you.
You'd be surprised. Actually, there are tons of freelancing jobs that pay you just for this.
Not to mention that the "author of this piece" has been making money for 10 years now, and getting paid, thank you, for doing his thing.
So maybe it's not him, but you that don't understand what's available?
Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact that nobody will pay you for this. So you have to make a living some other way, and use the leisure you earn to do this nice thing that you want to do.