Kashmir Hill of The New York Times profiled Techdirt founder Mike Masnick, who started blogging in 1998.
Hill writes, “Mr. Masnick has been a close observer of the tech industry’s rise from disruptive force to world-dominating power center, but he has never quite managed to reap its astronomical financial rewards for himself. The best way to describe how he makes a living is as an intellectual gig worker, equal parts business owner, tech journalist, policy analyst, research fellow and game designer.
“Techdirt has a handful of employees and paid contributors, almost all selected in meritocratic style from the comments section. Because of Mr. Masnick’s commitment to the free flow of information, Techdirt has never had a paywall. Advertising and support from the site’s million or so readers have never fully paid his bills.
“Mr. Masnick has written more than 51,000 (often lengthy) blog posts, adding more several times a day, and also hosts a weekly podcast. On one Friday this month, he wrote about proposed A.I. regulations (mostly bad, in his opinion), a court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against Amazon for selling teenagers “suicide kits” (a tragic case but a good ruling, he concluded), and legal challenges to “crazy” age-verification laws meant to protect children online.”
Read more here.
