Blogga sig till döds

NEW YORK Lennart Frantzell skrev häromåret om hur hemmajobbande, lågbetalda bloggare är vår tids motsvarighet till 1800-talets sweatshops – men det är väl snarare det förindustriella förlagssystemet som är den korrekta historiska parallellen. (Och så kan tidningarnas webbredaktioner med sina googlare få motsvara sweatshops...) Se även Lennarts inslagg om bloggande som lågstatusyrke. (Dick Harrison skriver roligare om det så kallade förlagssystemet, och om hur fritid förr prioriterades över att tjäna pengar, här.)

Nu skriver New York Times om hur bloggare bokstavligen jobbar sig till döds i sin permanent uppkopplade tillvaro på nätet med höga prestationskrav. Utdrag:

"...bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
(– – –)
It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands.
The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.

Sömnstörningar, ja, helt klart. Bäst att sluta skriva för idag!

/Gunilla