Author Richard Russo Warns of Tech Giants' Move Into Content for Writers

"Traditional publishers may have underpaid us," Russo writes, "but at least to them we were poets and painters and songwriters, terms that implied both respect and ownership of what we made, at least until we've sold it to them.

"The tech ethos is different. To them, we're often seen as mere hirelings. And since those who hire us are in the business of business, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to pay us as little as they can get away with and to make certain we understand that we're mere workers, not partners in the enterprise."