Rather, what’s objectionable is that Demand and other vapidware factories create content that ranks very high in search results, but they pay so little that the content is almost guaranteed to be of poor quality — witness the experienced videographer in the Wired article shooting noisy, out-of-focus video because he doesn’t have time to make it better and Demand doesn’t care.

Demand’s algorithms for taking search data and generating content ideas from it could be very useful and add to the overall good — IF those algorithms were used to spotlight gaps to be filled with good-quality content. But that’s not what vapidware companies like this do. Rather, they make poor-quality content whose only function is to score high in search-engine rankings so ads can be sold against it. This makes search engines less useful for anybody seeking real insight.