Is freelance writing dead?

Kind of a silly question - in fact, I could barely type it without raising my left eyebrow (a habit when someone says or does something ridiculous).

But I have seen this question bandied about here and there - and I guess it probably comes from writers who rely on Craigslist or something else where the competition is fierce and the prize is a very low-paying gig.

Want some (somewhat) scientific proof that freelance writing is alive and well? Try to figure out how many pages are on the web. You can Google it, Wiki it, or Ask it - and good luck getting a definitive number! I saw a couple of answers that ranged from 8 billion pages indexed by Google (but this was a number from 2007) to 20 billion pages total (not sure about that source).

The point is - someone is writing all of that content. Sure, some of it is absolute junk, and some has no text at all. But even eliminating all of those, that leaves an enormous number of pages -- and the number grows by the minute.

And this is just a glimpse at the opportunity for writing for the web! My guess is that the off-line writing opp is just about equal.

So go practice whatever quirky thing you do when YOU hear something ridiculous - and use it when you hear this silly question. : )