

Leaving in a Huff - quilby
http://www.ericdsnider.com/snide/leaving-in-a-huff/

======
pstack
Eric was actually talking about this the Rick Emerson Show (rickemerson.com)
some time last week. I don't recall which day it was, but he shared the
experience with the whole internet reaction to the email snip he posted that
AOL subsequently responded to by claiming "oh no, we're not forcing anyone to
work for free or be fired!" and then laid off the person who originally sent
the email that was snipped from.

It was a sad and frustrating story to hear (though amusing and snarky as Eric
tends to be, from my limited experience).

I'm a big proponent of doing what you love because you love it (like running a
forum or BBS or online service or writing) rather than trying to suck every
last penny out of something that you can. But when someone else is making
every last dime on something while expecting your contribution to be entirely
uncompensated, save for "but you'll see your name on a byline!", it is almost
downright sickening.

Unfortunately, this is a trend on the internet. It seems that fewer places are
willing to pay for writers or even photographers, anymore. You should be
thankful that your work is going to be used at all and then you can use the
fact that someone published your content as leverage to promote yourself into
something that does pay, somewhere . . . unless those people want you to work
for "ego", too.

It's very difficult to justify not paying content creators when you've just
made a few hundred million dollars off of the "they should thank me for
printing them!" model. Or . . . maybe that's exactly why it's so easy to
justify. Why pay when they're giving it to you for free?

I'm grateful I never entered one of these industries. I grew up with dreams of
being a writer. Then I had dreams of being a radio broadcaster. Then I had
dreams of being a video game developer. I went into the world of enterprise
software and unix and linux, instead. A world where there is competition, but
people aren't practically throwing themselves at you to do the job for free,
because it's "fun".

~~~
watchandwait
The issue behind the scene here is that AOL is creating significant financial
liability under U.S. labor law when it tries to shift paid workers to "free"
unpaid workers. I'm sure that's why AOL fired the editor, it had nothing to do
with the internet blowback, rather legal had to circle the wagons to protect
AOL corporate from future lawsuits for backpay.

------
teyc
This is classic price anchoring at work.

For years people would be very happy to produce work and get (somewhat) paid
for it because it is about writing something they are passionate for. Then,
this gets disrupted because the owner gets a big payout and doesn't share.
Disgusted with how things have turned out, since they now perceive their work
to be worth more, they leave. Suddenly the talent acquisition has turned into
nothing.

(The case of HuffPost is somewhat different, presumably the traffic would stay
around longer. )

But this business model is subject to disruption. I read that pirates operate
on a fairness principle, because many of them suffered as sailors in
government ships. May be someone here can start a HuffPost alternative that
issues equity instead?

------
trustfundbaby
I didn't want to even read that, but it was so well written that I couldn't
stop.

~~~
pandeiro
Ditto, pretty hilarious. "You've got fail."

~~~
joeld42
yeah somebody should pay that guy to write stuff.

~~~
alexqgb
lol

------
Vivtek
Money quote is - AOL: you've got fail.

Just one of the many points where this guy made me chortle with
schadenfreudige glee.

~~~
trustfundbaby
really? ... I thought it was

"Please. We may be whores, but we are not sluts."

~~~
Vivtek
OK, that's the _other_ money quote. Actually, there was a lot of quotable
material in there.

~~~
tygorius
Indeed, at least one of the lines was lifted directly from a film. When I ran
across that all-caps line at the end of the please-don't-reply-all section, I
couldn't help hearing it in Gene Wilder's voice ala Willy Wonka.

------
pchristensen
Holy crap, Eric Snider used to write for the BYU student newspaper and I loved
reading his column! I even bought his compilation books:
[http://www.amazon.com/Snide-Remarks-Eric-D-
Snider/dp/B000REH...](http://www.amazon.com/Snide-Remarks-Eric-D-
Snider/dp/B000REH4ZS/) and [http://www.amazon.com/Snide-REmarks-II-Electric-
Boogaloo/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Snide-REmarks-II-Electric-
Boogaloo/dp/B000HMNOGS/)

You won't be disappointed to read him.

------
petewailes
Anyone else ever feel that watching AOL do anything is like watching your
child make a bad choice, and knowing that you can't stop them?

I'm getting to the point of just feeling sorry for them nowadays.

~~~
adestefan
The face palms started with the AOL/Time Warner fiasco in 2000.

I still remember sitting in my basement watching the NASDAQ hit 5000 and
thinking this wasn't going to end well. The AOL/Time Warner merger a month
later didn't help that feeling. Too bad I was a poor 19 year old college
student who didn't understand how the financial world works at the time.

~~~
pbiggar
The merger was sheer brialliance on the part of AOL. Aware of how completely
overvalued they were, they "merged" (aka bought) Time Warner for pennies on
the dollar of real value. Then when the dot-com bubble burst, they didn't get
completely hosed as their share price dropped to nothing, which is what
happened to everyone else.

(note: I'm not sure of my history here, so please feel free to correct me if
you know better)

~~~
adestefan
At the time AOL really thought they were going to be the savior of traditional
media. The sky was the limit and they were no where near the top. The next
place everyone would go to get their news, entertainment, and world
information would be "web portals." The idea was to cram as much stuff as
possible on your homepage were people could see everything and amazed at the
sheer amount of information. AOL did it, Netscape did it, Yahoo did it , etc.

------
dhimes
TL;DR: It's a well written chronicle of the corporate communication that
occurred during the restructuring of cinematical.com/moviefone.com under AOL
after they were bought from Huffington. The author wrote freelance for
cinematical. After the editor-in-chief at cinematical resigned (and two other
editors there had resigned), the editor-in-chief of moviefone was apparently
put in charge of corralling the freelancers. The author is responsible for
starting the internet backlash which led to the firing of the editor-in-chief
at moviefone. He respects her a lot and regrets his involvement in bringing
about her termination.

~~~
bambax
This is the kind of post that really should not be TL;DRed, because it's so
much fun to read. The story is sad and even infuriating, and not very original
either (since all corporate takeovers are done in the same cowardly manner by
weasels); but the writing is wonderful.

> _The transition was going to be arduous and complicated. This was
> particularly true for the people who write AOL's press releases, who had to
> work overtime issuing statements with business terms like "restructuring"
> (which means firing people), "streamlining" (which also means firing
> people), "re-branding" (which means making people forget all the negative
> associations they have with AOL and Arianna Huffington), and "synergy"
> (which doesn't mean anything)._

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I think that AOL/Huff has actually been fairly distinct in how badly they have
handled these layoffs. It seems like "Transition 101" to share the
fired/staying personell information all at once. To drag it out over any
period of time just seems extremely odd.

~~~
bambax
It was handled in a Monthy Python's way, as per the opening credits of The
Holy Grail:

> _A Møøse once bit my sister ...

We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been
sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for
sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

Møøse trained by TUTTE HERMSGERVORDENBROTBORDA

(...)

The directors of the firm hired to continue the credits after the other people
had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.

The credits have been completed in an entirely different style at great
expense and at the last minute.

(etc.)_

\- - -

It's unwise to fire the firers at the same time as the firees.

------
daimyoyo
Jason Calacanis should negotiate to get cinematical back from aol. They
clearly have no idea what to do with it and I'm sure he'd have no problem with
the whole "pay people who create content" model.

~~~
pstack
He'd probably continue the confusion he's caused with the existing TWiT
network by rebranding it "This Week In . . . Cinema". Unless he could find a
way to do some namedropping in the rebranding, too.

------
budu3
"... suspicious foreign person Arianna Huffington". I know that he's not a big
fan of Arianna's but that statement makes him sound like a Xenophobe.

~~~
pandeiro
Not at all, or he wouldn't have used that intentionally awkward-sounding
construction. Xenophobes don't talk like that; humorists do.

------
cabalamat
I read the first few paragraphs and couldn't tell where this was going. Is
there a tl;dr version?

~~~
raganwald
Sure there is, but quite honestly this isn't something most people would value
for the plotline. It's something you will enjoy reading because the story's
prose alternately moves and amuses, portraying the situation as a tragi-
comedy. I can tell you that BigCo buys LittleCo, merges LittleCo with
MiddleCo, brings in Chainsaw Huffington to fire hundreds of people, and along
the way there are SNAFUs as the company tries to restructure things. Those are
the ostensible facts.

But that plot is played out somewhere every week, it's not worth reading
unless you have a personal interest in the people or the companies, or unless
the story is told in a way that moves you. Thus, I suggest you stick with it
and read the entire thing. Or if you're too busy to read the entire thing,
skip it: There'll probably be a story just like this about Yahoo! shuttering
one of its acquisitions in a week or so.

