Comment by FireBeyond 7 hours ago
> writing a blog post every once in a while will not provide meaningful income
Nor, generally, should it. Sitting down one or two Saturday afternoons a month to write a blog post shouldn't be generating the income of a FTE.
That's tempting, but I still don't think it should. There would still be the quest to go viral. "Quality" would still be determined in the aggregate, which means that your income depends on appealing to the widest audience possible, which means high quality niche bloggers still don't get paid much.
Metrics are hard. Just making sure they reward one particular desired outcome doesn't mean you'll escape the unintended consequences.
Also, note that we are past the point of being able to reasonably able to manage any of this. Today, you'd need to come up with a reward function that cannot be maximized by AI. (And lest you think you can fix that by using site visitors to evaluate, most of them will be bots too.)
So there's an element of truth to that. And there are those who can contribute enough value, have enough audience, etc., that they can "coast" on those 2 blog posts a month and make significant income...
... but that's also not, nor should it be the median. I'm not sure how the economy functions if, say 8h/mo effort generates a median living wage.
Allow me a second to play Devil’s Advocate.
What if it could? Or should (be able to produce FTE or close income)?
In that world, the amount of pointless shite - questing to “go viral” - would be reduced to near zero. That is, if the incentive were more quality, and less quantity, we’d be better off, yes?