I also think that requiring people to get paid for simply typing up a headline on some for-profit website is a ridiculous obstruction to free speech. Not all for-profit sites can afford to pay everyone that wants to post a headline, but if they have to, they will let fewer people post headlines or they may even let no one post anything. This will make it more difficult for those who are willing to post for free to get their opinions distributed. They may have to host their own website, websites cost money, and their isolated website may not benefit from the larger audience that a popular for-profit website could attract partly by allowing multiple people to post their opinion pieces on it. This will deter the distribution of their opinion which is an undue obstruction to free speech. While I generally tend to agree with having a minimum wage (though it really doesn’t make that big of a difference since most people get paid more than the minimum wage regardless), I think that in the case where a minimum wage can be a reasonable obstruction to free speech, free speech should prevail.

and many companies that sell tech and other items have discussion boards that allow people to ask for help and that allow anyone who signs up to answer. Those companies that sell tech items are for profit and they can benefit from these discussion boards too. Should an anonymous person who voluntarily answers a question for free about a product by posting a comment on a discussion board later be allowed to get paid minimum wage too?

I also think one significant difference is that people who post on Huffington post can post when they like from anywhere they like (as long as they have Internet access). Most hard labor jobs require you to be at place X every day (or whatever) from time x to time y (more or less) and they must work at least z hours a day/week or else they may lose their jobs. People who post to the Huffington post set the rules and they can post during their leisure time as part of their leisure, the Huffinton post is not telling them you must make at least x amount of posts per week or you must contribute y amount of your time per week, it’s more of a post as you like scenario.

(and if you don’t think that these governmental actions could curtail free speech, just look at how much the government has curtailed free speech outside the Internet. IP in this country is absolutely absurd yet any criticism about it would never make it over public airwaves or on cableco infrastructure thanks to the fact that the government grants monopoly power over public airwave and cableco infrastructure use. Yet the government started slowly eroding free speech over public airwaves with the claim that it will ensure there is enough media competition for free speech to continue, but today that’s far from true. They were wrong then and they don’t care enough to even make a single effort to fix the problem, why should I believe that they’re right now when it comes to Internet regulation? Why should I believe that their airwave and Internet regulations aren’t intended to hinder free speech? Their regulations hinder free speech and they don’t care because that’s what they want).