Monday, December 21, 2015

Warning: If You Choose A Career In Bitcoin You Might Die Poor And Alone

Justin O'Connell writes:
The reality in Bitcoin is the general pay for most people is around $10 per hour or less....

Over and over again I come across people in the space who are willing to pay poverty wages for work in a space they insist is “going to change the world.” That’s why, if you’re a young entrepreneur with little experience who gets into Bitcoin, people will love you.

I was recently offered seven cents per word on a long-form ghostwriting work about Bitcoin. Seven. Cents. Per. Word. Anyone out there with ghostwriting experience will know that that’s. really. fucking. cheap. The average is like 20 cents to a dollar we’ll say, which is clear with cursory research into the topic. I think seven cents a word for research intensive work works out to like $3 per hour. But, hey, if that’s what Bitcoiners want to offer for pay on their highly niche, sophisticated and nascent technology, that’s their right, right? Plus, that $3 per hour might be paid in Bitcoin! (Woohoo!) Then one gets to stomach the sometimes gut-wrenching daily price movements.

That kind of approach to labor only makes Bitcoiners look bad. It only ensures that the brightest minds are going to other growth industries. Marijuana. Beer. Arts. Sports. Cultural News. These are all things that pay way better than Bitcoin does in my experience. For instance, I can get drunk for free (excuse me, taste beers for free), then get paid at least 20 cents per word for a story about beer. That’s more than double what some “rich” Bitcoiners are looking to pay for research intensive, longform reports. At this point, because the Bitcoin velocity is actually quite slow, I can’t even get a free Bitcoin bag at a conference. But maybe a sticker advertisement....

That’s why the top minds in technology and philosophy are not defecting to Bitcoin en masse. And when they do enter the space, they might tiptoe right back out of it, like a Bitcoin donate button disappearing from the WordPress website, and wait for the ecosystem to mature and for there to be more opportunities before going “all-in.”
As for the alone part? Well, ain’t no one talking about “Bitcoin diggers.”
 -RW 

2 comments:

  1. "I was recently offered seven cents per word on a long-form ghostwriting work about Bitcoin. Seven. Cents. Per. Word. Anyone out there with ghostwriting experience will know that that’s. really. fucking. cheap..."

    "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion..."

    -- L Ron Hubbard

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  2. No surprise here. This has nothing to do with Bitcoin's abilities to save people vast sums, both through transaction costs, and absence of inflation. This has everything to do with the government deciding to suppress Bitcoin. Mainstream investors need a return from profitable businesses that won't get shut down by a government geared up to crush any competition to its fiat currency.

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