[KMinshew]

Hi Asparagirl, there are 4-5x the number of people who ask to write for us compared to the number who ultimately get to, so clearly there's some value there :)

The reality is that most of our writers are also mentors to other people, and they really enjoy it. Writing for The Muse is their way of scaling that mentorship to a broader audience.

[ot]

I share the sentiment of the parent in that the illusion of value could be much larger than the actual value.

Ultimately the work these people do is more valuable for themuse than for themselves, and even if there are a lot of people willing to do it, it does not mean it is ethical to let them do it for free.

[zodiac]

I think the argument against unpaid internships is not so much that they don't provide value, but that they're only open to people who can afford to do an unpaid internship.

[KMinshew]

I'm in agreement with you on that - we pay all of our interns at The Muse. The posting referred to above is a way of recruiting people who are interested in contributing 1-4 mentoring posts per month, so very low commitment nights-and-weekends type thing.