This Just In From Norway: Let the Government Feed the Bloggers

Two apparently desperate Norwegian bloggers have applied to the Norwegian Government for a salary similar to the one artists can obtain. All according to a report from the Swedish news agency TT published in Realtid.se.

The two Norwegian bloggers claim that they are no less needed by society than other artists, such as painters and composers, but the Department of Culture said no. One of the bloggers wrote in her application that her blog has 150 unique visitors every week, and more are coming. Hence, she needs money to continue her heavy lifting in cyberspace. To which the Department replied that the salaries to artists only goes to artists that "have shown over a long time that they are providing a useful social value of high quality."

I certainly feel her pain.

Making money from blogging is tough. I have passed 12,000 page views, and that has earned me less than 62 dollars in five months. But if not even this stinking rich Northern OPEC member can spare a dime for the starving artist, I will probably have to stick to my day job for now.

It's not fair, but one day we will have had enough!

We will withdraw our digits from our keyboards, massage our tired temples, ditch our iced lattes, and emerge from Starbucks to face the real world. No more words will flow onto the screens for others to exploit without attribution, and all you free riding readers will regret that you didn't even have the courtesy to click on those little ads that make billions for Google and pennies for us.... The day will come when we will direct our digital toil against our oppressors as they once turned on their analog predecessors.

Let the ruling media tycoons tremble at a web 2.0 revolution. The bloggers have nothing to lose but their carpal tunnel pain. They have a web to win.

Bloggers of all domains, unite!

Hans Sandberg