Kerry Taylor over at Squawkfox posted a nice piece on working for free last week. It’s timely given the news in February that The Huffington Post – which has published the work of unpaid contributors – sold out to AOL Inc. for $315 million. The deal generated a lot of debate about exactly the question Taylor raised: Should you ever work for free?

I did this myself, early in my career. I wanted to be a music journalist, and the only path I could find to a paying gig was to build a portfolio of published work. I’m proud to have been part of the early days at Exclaim! and Chart. You can still find some of my work online, like this piece on the Cowboy Junkies I did for a short-lived, but great magazine called Venue.

While I failed to establish myself as a paid music writer, it was a positive experience. I loved the work and learned a lot. (Mostly I learned that I preferred writing about economics.)

A couple of observations then, from my perspective:

• The debate about working for free is often cast in moral terms. It’s argued that employers are immoral for not paying because they’re profiting from the labour of unrewarded talent. Workers who take assignments without compensation are similarly characterized because they make it harder for professionals to find a job that pays.
• Those with the harshest views on this are often established professionals, which is to say they are the ones with something to lose. I find the debate on this far more nuanced among young and/or unemployed people trying to gain a bit of traction in their chosen field.

Here’s what I think. Working for free is not a moral issue, at least not in this context. It is a personal decision. I could afford to write for free because I had a job that allowed me some flexibility with my time and I had the energy to take on the extra work. I accepted the terms of those arrangements, even once it became clear to me that my professional dreams weren’t coming true.

I would no more counsel someone against working for free than I would advise an unemployed writer against blogging. As long as you go in with your eyes open, and learn from the experience you’ll benefit. Even if it’s not in the way you originally expected.