Marco.org

(The internet, circa 2008.)

Huffington Post: “Write for us, and we’ll give you ‘exposure’ on our popular site!”

Writers: “How much will you pay us?

HuffPo: “Nothing, but we’ll put your name on your posts, so you can become famous and make money from someone else someday!”

Most Writers: “Bye.”

The Other Writers: “Sounds great! We want to break into the industry!”

(Some time later…)

AOL: “We have more money than relevance! Here, HuffPo, take a bunch of the former and try to give us more of the latter.”

HuffPo: “Gladly!” (rolls in a pile of money)

The Other Writers: “We did all of that writing for free, and now that you made a bunch of money, we’re entitled to some of it!”

AOLHuffPo: “LOL!”