[Ipg-smz] Not the greeting I was expecting ...

[Tom Geller]

On 5 Nov 2019, at 12:31, Tom Henderson via Ipg-smz <ipg-smz at netpress.org> wrote:

> Amazingly, I may have the largest independent test lab, enterprise grade, left. Who's left doing enterprise-grade product reviews?


Quite right. 

Theresa W. Carey recently posted some jobs at DotDash that looked good, including one for freelance tech reviewers -- a job I did 20+ years ago. They wanted 1,000-2,500 word reviews, tested on multiple devices, with "crisp, well-lit photos of review products in clean settings". Exactly the sort of thing a lab would do.

Well, fine -- I can do all that. Then I realized that the chances of them paying more than $250/review are nearly zero.

They'll get someone, of course. Probably someone just out of school, starting up a ladder to a point they don't yet realize no longer exists. Or a hobbyist, part-timer, or retiree. Doesn't matter, because those 2,000 words be gone in a few days.

---
Tom Geller  *  Writer & Video/journalist  *  http://tomgeller.com
       Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468
            Oberlin, Ohio  *  +1-415-317-1805




> On 5 Nov 2019, at 12:31, Tom Henderson via Ipg-smz <ipg-smz at netpress.org> wrote:
> 
> Amazingly, I may have the largest independent test lab, enterprise grade, left. Who's left doing enterprise-grade product reviews?
> 
> I wonder if this is the emergence of the tech oligarchy.
> 
> It's my humble opinion that I have but a fraction of what might be realistic: 500 Xeon cores, 40K GPU cores, 100TB NVMe SAN, 10GB with 100GB core router. This is crazy. There should be ten dozen of me.
> 
> This is how the media becomes controlled: asphyxiation.
> 
> Imagine: I'm using this stuff to make cryptocurrency because enterprise-grade product journalism has been starved off-- choked.
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> On 11/5/19 2:20 AM, Tom Geller via Ipg-smz wrote:
>> On 5 Nov 2019, at 08:01, Howard M. Cohen via Ipg-smz<ipg-smz at netpress.org>  wrote:
>> 
>>> many of us have changed who we write for
>> If you write for a vendor, are you a "journalist"? Open for debate, but I'd say "no", and my comments here reflect that. Certainly the consensus answer was "no" twenty years ago.
>> 
>>> Ours is a vibrant and vital community.
>> Arguing against that:
>> * Far lower freelance rates, down over 75% from the 1990s.
>> * Far fewer staff positions, probably down over 90%.
>> * Far less care and oversight (copyeditors, managing editors, etc.). Again I'd say 75-90% shrinkage.
>> * Far fewer publications, so less mobility.
>> * For less exposure from each piece (shorter pieces, in the public eye for only days or hours).
>> * Far less publication revenue from our work, causing all the above.
>> 
>> I'll grant that it's a "vibrant and vital community" -- of part-timers, hobbyists, and retired folks looking to stay busy (*ahem*). But for only a tiny number is it a profession nowadays.
>> 
>> It's nice work if you can get it. And if you get it, won't you tell me how?
>> 
>> ---
>> Tom Geller  *  Writer & Video/journalist  *http://tomgeller.com
>>        Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468
>>             Oberlin, Ohio  *  +1-415-317-1805
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> -- 
> Tom Henderson
> ExtremeLabs, Inc.
> +1 317 250 4646
> Twitter: @extremelabs
> Skype: extremelabsinc
> 
> 
> -- 
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> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
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