Here We Go Again: Should HuffPo Pay?

Felix Salmon is calling me out on my latest bite at the HuffPo apple, and I'm glad he is, because I'm not done here.

Quoth the Salmon:

[It's] Jeff Bercovici's idea that the founders of the Huffington Post shouldn't profit from their writers' efforts. I disagree: Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer are performing a very valuable service, which was funded largely with venture capital, and there's no reason why their hard work and vision shouldn't be profitable for them and their investors.

Let's be clear here: I never said Huffington and Lerer shouldn't profit from their efforts. Others have made that case, but I don't think they have a moral obligation. I do, however, think it's a PR problem for them if they start making bank while continuing to pay bloggers nothing. (Isn't this whole debate evidence of that?) If Arianna wants to endure more open letters calling her a "robber baron," she has my blessing. But something tells me she enjoys wearing the halo.

Felix also quotes my rather poorly-articulated and unintended insinuation that Huffington has guards patrolling the grounds to keep bloggers from defecting. No, I did not mean that. What I'm trying to say is Arianna has been operating with two different motives: fostering new voices and building HuffPo into a traffic powerhouse. So far, those motives have been compatible, but at some point they will come into conflict. There will come a day when she has to choose between paying someone to keep him around or losing a chunk of traffic when he sets up shop elsewhere. Without questioning her sincerity, it's possible to wonder how thrilled she'll be when that day arrives.

Now a question for you, Felix: Are you sure increasing the number of bloggers increases the value of the site? I think there's a point of diminishing returns, and I suspect, with 1,800 bloggers, HuffPo has already passed it. Those bloggers don't come at no cost -- it requires staffers to recruit and monitor them. It'd be interesting to see the distribution of HuffPo bloggers' traffic; I'd guess there's a very long tail.

Assuming I'm right and a small fraction of the bloggers are generating most of the page views, what's the point? Why keep adding to the ranks? Or am I totally naive about the economics here?

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