Seem that bloggers who work 24/7 for pay are dying on the job or getting sick. (NYT 6 Apr 08).

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece-not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

. . . Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

. . . The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves—and are being well-compensated for it.

. . . It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands. The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.

I’ve wondered if I could make money from home on the Internet. I can write . . . quickly. Nah. I’m too old for that all night stuff. And who wants 2,500 (or 25) words on anything that interests me?