About a dozen times since I started Simple Justice, someone showed up to argue a point and substantiated their credibility with the statement, I write for Huffington Post.  The earth started to move. Angels sang, A bright light from above enveloped my computer.  They were important.

That was then, when people whose self-worth was established through their connection to Arianna Huffington, their access to her platform as their very own.  It made them . . . worthy.  As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad for Huffington either.  When the reality of money on the table hit home, the warm feeling of importance, strutting their stuff around the blogosphere, the light from above suddenly shined less bright.

One writer, Jonathan Tasini,  started a class action against Huffington, promising to make her a pariah in progressive circles.  His allegation:

“In my view, the Huffington Post’s bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation.”

No doubt that use of absurd analogies didn’t help Tasini get a paying gig.  The legal basis for the claim is, of course, nonexistent.  They begged for the chance to post their stuff on HuffPo, to be seen by a million eyeballs and to strut around the neighborhood secure in their fame and prominence.  Arianna didn’t keep them in chains.  

Eugene Volokh deals with the merit of the class action, in unusually snarky fashion, calling it “a loser.”  But then, it could just be sour grapes.

Disclosures: I used to be shamelessly exploited by the Huffington Post myself, until the managers there changed their posting policies in a way that seemed likely to yield fewer eyeballs. Then, “modern-day slave[]” that I was “on Arianna Huffington’s plantation,” I just took advantage of the traditional right of slaves to stop working. (What, that’s not a traditional right of slaves?)

I’m also ruthlessly enslaved by radio and television programs that ask me to appear on them, and that indirectly make money from my priceless punditry without paying me a penny. And of course I run a veritable forced labor camp here, where the authors of our million comments are (doubtless to their shock and horror) entirely unpaid, even though they drive up our page views and thus our income stream.

(Aside: Yes, VC has past the million comment mark.  I plan to reach it too, the only caveat being that I live to 397 years of age.)

The young Turk on the AOL/HuffPo Payroll, Radley Balko, is similarly unpersuaded to shed a tear.

A bunch of people agreed to write for Huffington Post for free. Or rather, in exchange for a platform that gave them access to a pretty large audience. They did this knowing full well that the goal of Huffington Post has always been to eventually become profitable. If they agreed to sit behind their keyboards and voluntarily churn out free content, how exactly have they been exploited? And on what basis could they possibly argue that those prior agreements should change now that the site has been purchased by AOL?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written for free over the years. It’s how you get a foot in the door. It has never occurred to me to go back and sue all of those publications. Come to think of it, I’ve been writing for all of you for free for the last nine years. Expect a visit from my process server soon.

Of course, if Balko is going to be a slave on Arianna Huffington’s plantation, at least he’s going to be a well paid slave.  You know, the slave in Gucci chains.  He’ll suffer.

The consideration for their “churning out content” at Huffington Plantation was the bragging rights of being part of the tribe, the fame, whether real or perceived, the ability to tell others, like me, that they wrote for Huffington Post and were, therefore, not the stark raving lunatics or village idiots they otherwise appeared to be.  This was more than enough value to make them feel that their efforts were worth it.

I was less than impressed most of the time.  That they posted their content without compensation at Arianna Huffington’s website always struck me as a fool’s play.  I knew they weren’t getting paid. I also knew that there was so much posted by so many writers that she could accommodate plenty of duds and still hold on to her eyeballs.  Some of the writers offered some incredibly banal, simplistic, even moronic content and ideas, but they remained vitally self-important by dint of their connection to greatness.

It was certainly impressive that HuffPo had a $315 million price tag. Memo to AOL: Simple Justice can be had for half the price. Call me, we’ll talk.  Writers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, do a lot of things to gain recognition or compensate for their feelings of inadequacy.  Huffington turned her website into a fortune.  Good for her.  This is America and she’s allowed to make a killing off a good idea well executed.

We all make choices in how we spend out time.  The HuffPo whiners, and that doesn’t include those writers who wear big-boy pants and aren’t complaining now that they received their compensation in full when their name appeared at the top of a post, were never slaves, but fools.  They sought fame rather than payment for their services, and they got the benefit of the bargain.  It didn’t turn out as well as they hoped?  Bummer.

The lesson here is that fame has become the coin of the realm, as predicted by Andy Warhol, but taken farther than Andy could have ever dreamed.  If someone is willing to work for fame, then the deal is struck.  When it turns out later that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and the shine of coins is brighter than the spotlight, don’t complain about it.  You chose poorly.  Suck it up and learn from it.

And no, I am not looking for guest posts from former HuffPo writers, and no, I have no plan to pay anyone for their effort.  And no, there’s no fame to be had here.

Full Disclosure:  Nobody pays me to write here.  I wouldn’t mind if someone did.  But if you want me to write for you, then we will have to reach an agreement on compensation.  I write for free for me, not for you.