>Given that we don't have a guaranteed universal income, we should want the
>playwright (or Doug) to be paid because we want that work
>produced--not just now
>but in the future. We don't want to deter writers from writing by promising
>them poverty and desperation for their efforts. We don't want the next book
>never to come cause Doug's out driving a cab.
Me either! But, oh, the things I do to make money...
The net has transformed a lot of people's assumptions about writing - they want it all for free. Which is fine if you're a blogger getting a paycheck from a university or a think tank, but what about us hacks who aren't so well-situated? Stuff posted on the web looks costless to the user, but it takes a lot of time and effort to get it there in many cases.
Doug