Its a "great" way for employers to screen out less privileged folks and keep the job for someone from a "proper" family. Trust fund babies have no problem doing an unpaid internship.

As a guideline, if the field has money to go around and companies have to compete for interns, they'll pay. If would-be interns have to compete for a few internships and the field famously struggles with budgets of two beans and a bit of string, they won't.

Netflix is rolling in cash.

Let's say Netflix['s production company] were to auction the opportunity to work with them on this project (for clarity: the winning photographer pays).

Q1: Are we suggesting there would no bidders?

Q2: If "the market fixes stuff" why can't the market fix this?

I haven't heard of this at all in Silicon Valley though. In fact interns are pretty well paid, $7500/month at my previous company.

Congress now pays their interns too, though I don't know if this extends to campaign interns: https://cha.house.gov/member-services/house-paid-internship-...