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As with the rest of the 'Net, so goes Suite

© Deborah Lagarde

Copyright 2002 Deborah Lagarde. Comments? E-mail: "mailto:dlagarde@suite101.com"

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I've been reading the posts in the Editor's Lounge area of suite101.com on the heals of learning that I would no longer be paid for doing this Media Issues column (along with the other 1,000 or so editors), and most CEs are angry. Anger was not my first reaction. I was chagrined of course, for it was my $25 a month that paid for my Internet account, but, actually, I was not only NOT surprised by the front office decision, I was only surprised that the decision to stop paying editors didn't come months ago--years ago!

Check it out: I made close to $500 writing for Themestream going back to when they were known as OscarTech, and they, too, gave virtually no notice that they were shutting down. I made a little over $200 being the Eating Disorders Host with BellaOnline; should've made more, but Bella had this funny way of not paying their hosts most of the time, and then they went to paying hosts only revenues based on Delphi hits. I had roughly a 1,000 hits on Delphi in October and September, and only made a few bucks from it. Then there was YouKnowBest.com, where I didn't actually write, it was more of a data entry type gig, but again I made close to $400 from it, then, they too unceremoniously shut down, even as they were considering me for a Content Manager job!

But the handwriting was ALWAYS on the wall. First, Themestream cut their pay from 10 cents per hit to 2 cents even as my article hits were close to skyrocketing (with my "homeschooling on a low income" series and my "write-for-pay" articles--the irony here is not lost on me!). Then, a couple of months later, themestream shut down. With Bella (which may still be around, I haven't checked it out), the fact that I was almost never paid for my rather time-consuming work, what with having to repost my work several times when they changed their database servers every few months, and their Macintosh unfriendliness, was the writing on the wall. I stuck with it as long as I did (I quit in February, 2001) because there were some anorexics and bulimics out there I think I might really have helped with my chat room. As for YouKnowBest, they started giving me excuses why they "couldn't" pay me for hours of research, so I just quit.

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