It's complicated.

So should people not be allowed to write on a personal blog or in an online publication for the public exposure/other knock-on effects relevant to their day job? Because all those people are, at some level, competing with freelancers and other writers.

(I've actually had conversations with professional writers about this. Their general take is that ship has sailed.)

Now, to be clear, organizations trying to get you to do something that you're typically paid to do is absolutely a pox. But there's a difference between a consultant being asked to give a free presentation at an event "for the exposure" and doing so voluntarily because they've made their own decision that it's a worthwhile investment in lead generation or whatever.

To give a personal example, last year I published a new edition of a book. It wasn't for free but it might as well have been in terms of earnings per hour, but I actually wanted to do that. But if you want me to write something for your corporate blog, you're absolutely paying me and paying me pretty well.

If you are a professional, it means you have a business. Large companies can give away things for free, and this is called marketing, and no one has a problem with this. If small or one person businesses want to give away labor for free, also for marketing purposes, why is this unethical?

There’s an entire 2 million subscriber subreddit that was built on screen caps of people trying to pay in “exposure”… r/ChoosingBeggars

What if someone takes this job for free and it kicks off a long and successful career? Maybe one that lets them create jobs. Is it really a bad thing? They are just playing the game by the rules that exist. Good or bad.

> It's bad for everybody when professionals work "for publicity" or are encouraged to do so

It's important that we not allow our moral judgments to interfere with the facts. This is obviously false.

It’s bad for other professionals because it creates expectations that people will work for free and it reduces the amount other professionals can earn. That’s why it generates negative reactions and shaming in those communities. In the short term, that’s good for whoever gets a free service. In the long run, it’s not great for sustaining a population with a valuable expertise.

So is it bad for developers to work on open source projects on GitHub in their free time? After all, by that logic doing so reduces the amount that other developers can earn.

And should a consultant not be able to maintain a blog that people don't pay for because doing so competes with freelancers?

Working on open source does not create as much of an expectation that you work for free by request on other projects, nor does blogging. We may argue about why this is the case, but it's moot. Analogies are blunt tools that only result in back-and-forths about the differences between the original case and the proposed cases. If you think a tendency for creatives to work for free does not increase the tendency of businesses to request that creatives work for free, then make that argument directly, rather than pointing to something different.

>If you think a tendency for creatives to work for free does not increase the tendency of businesses to request that creatives work for free, then make that argument directly, rather than pointing to something different.

I think it absolutely does increase that tendency.

When I write for online tech publications, at some level, my writing, for which I'm not paid, takes money out of some freelancer's pocket--all other things being equal (which of course they aren't).

And all the people who speak at events for free and even cover their own travel (or their companies do) definitely make it harder for qualified people who would prefer to be paid to do so.

But, to be blunt, I don't care. If it's in my personal interest to do those things for free, I'm not going to choose to abstain because of some microscopic impact on the labor market.

In this photographer case, I actually don't think there's much of an impact. Someone mentioned Super Bowl performers performing for free. I doubt anyone thinks Lady Gaga is going to start giving gratis concerts all over the place. There has been a major impact on photography as a profession but that's more about the proliferation of free, cheap, and easily obtained amateur photos.

They're not working for free though. If you are a wedding photographer the value in saying "I did all the photographs for season X of <stupid but very popular wedding show>" has huge monetary value. If the supply/demand economics were such that you still had to pay them $stipend/minimum wage/premium this would still be the case. Photographers are free to accept in-kind payment or not.

You can't pay rent with that.

No, it's really not. Community minded artists refuse to discount their work because discounting their work cuts out the market for young up and coming artists. Creative communities have been making these decisions for longer than I have even owned a computer.

It's bad for the other photographers, but good for those looking to acquire photography services.

The amusing irony of that video is that he mostly likely asked to get paid for that interview and now it's on YouTube for free, giving him exposure. :)

True, though I wouldn't be surprised if he contacted somebody about this video at some point. Either way, it is the bittersweet truth that Ellison no longer has need for publicity nor payment.