I think this is something to send to all the young people who think they're going to be English majors and become writers. If they don't care if they blog for free or get paid 2-cents/word, they have my blessing, especially if they have a day job or, as the author says, are rich. But there is nothing new to this except for the existence of bloggers and the internet. When I was in the National Writers Union, we saw writing jobs eroding: payments decreasing to the point of near invisibility, editors becoming nastier and more capricious, and publishers disappearing, refusing to pay, or even deciding to outsource (to Romania at the time). For most of our members, writing wasn't a living. I gave a standard talk to aspiring writers telling them that their competition, no matter how well-trained or skilled they were, often was people without a four-year college degree, let alone a master's or Ph.D. Everyone and anyone can become a writer. So, although I am very skilled and sometimes (less often now) highly paid, people who will take 1/100th of what I make are my competition, and editors sometimes will take them. So, yes, the author is right. I tell young people all the time, "You want to be a writer? Get a degree in something else, and, like Kafka, have a day job."