I believe this is a forum about content writing, of which mills are a part of. So you arguing against a group of people who write for them is kind of silly.
Bright Hub offers up front money and revenue share. Some people are happy with the rates. I didn't care for it myself, but I see how some might like it. They did want interviews and so forth, and I didn't want to do that.
Demand Studios' rates are about $.05 a word, about on par with a small newspaper. Is it low pay for writing? Yes. Are they requesting interviews and so on? No. At DS, you're paid $15 an article and up, and often it equates to $15 an hour, which is what they are expecting. That's a bit higher than minimum wage. For someone who is able to, finishing two very nice articles in an hour is totally doable.
My local weekly papers will get free content from people trying to break into the industry, and the daily newspaper is chock full of freelancers, more than they need. The newspaper I used to write for paid well, but it came out to less than minimum when I was able to locate a person to interview, drive out and conduct the interview, write a transcript, and write and edit to standards, etc. I've had a wide range of experience. I dislike newspapers and magazines because I don't like conducting interviews. I wrote content for DS, found my own clients who request the same thing for more pay and additional work, and I've left DS. But I would do it again. The $15 for an easier article to write over newspaper work is OK.
And there are people who make a couple thousand a month writing. They learned how to write for this type of thing, and they are proficient. Some make $100 a day or more. I'm friends with many of them, and they write far better than I do. It is not "BS". They write well, they write quickly, and they move on.
Are there issues? Yes, but there's issues with higher paying places as well, including editor mistakes, fluff, plagiarism and so forth.
I don't really feel that I'm being taken advantage of. I felt newspaper work wasn't worth my time that I have stopped working with them. I do, though, get tired of hearing "slave wages" and "minimum wage" from some journalists who want to be shocked at the pay rate, but don't really see know how much they are paid per hour.