If you have a profession which requires some form of innate creative skill (photography, music, art, writing, etcetera) chances are that at one time or another, you've been asked to ply your trade not for the promise of financial reward, but for that mythical and enigmatic prize, "exposure".
I am no exception; over the years, I've contributed a lot of free content to websites on the off chance that someone of influence might see my work and actually pay me to do more. I have since realised that to operate this way is a fool's errand. In my case, all that results is someone else reaping the benefit and generating traffic to their site, while I receive little more than a "thank you". Worse still, some have attempted to reshape my voice in order to push their specific narrative and let's be honest here, if you're going to ask someone to abandon their integrity, the least you can do is offer fair compensation.
With rare exceptions, lawyers, accountants and architects do not work for free. Why then do we ask it of people who enrich the world in a way that's different, but no less valuable?
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