I'm the cynic, as you might have guessed. I haven't wasted a minute of my writing time on this. In the 1990s, I stood proudly as a long time union guy from a union town (Detroit) with those who refused to allow their pieces in the NY Times archive because we weren't getting electronic rights, or whatever the argument was at the time.
Then I was distressed that a piece I'd written had disappeared from the NYT archives, and from the world at large. I liked the piece. A few years ago, I noticed it was back in the archives. WTF?
I have too much to do to worry about what happens to pieces that are never going to earn me another dime. If Google can get somebody to read 'em, I'm for it. Besides, the free email, storage, software and search services Google provides have saved me thousands of dollars. I don't mind paying for that, if indirectly.
