ChatGPT is Hurting Freelance Writers
Stay ahead of the career threats and opportunities created by AI and ChatGPT:
Freelance writers are hurting.
ChatGPT is hollowing out the writing industry.
ChatGPT is not perfect, but it’s fast and cheap. One person with the skills to dig into ChatGPT can now produce the content of 10 writers.
The first to feel the effects are the most ‘disposable’ workers - freelancers. Freelance writers are already losing business.
Many argue that the writers who can produce more engaging, personalized and niche content will survive. Let’s say 3/10 writers can do this. That doesn’t mean that 3/10 writers will prosper. Rather, with a flood of unemployed writers hitting the market, the price those 3/10 writers can command will drop.
The pie of available work shrinks but the number of hungry writers remains the same.
Moreover, the argument above assumes businesses prioritize quality. Business executives might say they care about quality but many only care about next quarter’s earnings. So if they can get 7/10 quality content at 1/10th of the price they’ll do it.
Also, by asking the right questions and with some clever supplementation/editing one can use ChatGPT to replicate the work of top tier content and copy writers.
This is already becoming reality.
Here is one freelancer’s experience (source: Reddit):
I literally lost my biggest and best client to ChatGPT today. This client is my main source of income, he’s a marketer who outsources the majority of his copy and content writing to me. Today he emailed saying that although he knows AI’s work isn’t nearly as good as mine, he can’t ignore the profit margin.
For reference this is a client I picked up in the last year. I took about 3 years off from writing when I had a baby. He was extremely eager to hire me and very happy with my work. I started with him at my normal rate of $50/hour which he has voluntarily increased to $80/hour after I’ve been consistently providing good work for him.
Again, I keep seeing people (myself included) saying things like, “it’s not a threat if you’re a GOOD writer.” I get it. Am I the most renowned writer in the world? No. But I have been working as a writer for over a decade, have worked with top brands as a freelancer, have more than a dozen published articles on well known websites. I am a career freelance writer with plenty of good work under my belt. Yes, I am better than ChatGPT. But, and I will say this again and again, businesses/clients, beyond very high end brands, DO NOT CARE. They have to put profits first. Small businesses especially, but even corporations are always cutting corners.
Please do not think you are immune to this unless you are the top 1% of writers. I just signed up for Doordash as a driver. I really wish I was kidding.
I know this post might get removed and I’m sorry for contributing to the sea of AI posts but I’m extremely caught off guard and depressed. Obviously as a freelancer I know clients come and go and money isn’t always consistent. But this is hitting very differently than times I have lost clients in the past. I’ve really lost a lot of my motivation and am considering pivoting careers. Good luck out there everyone.