The story takes place in an alternate universe in which there is a "ten best sellers" list of prostitutes printed weekly in the New York Times. The New York Times is a kind of community blog where "volz" write the news. The are no "paid writers" working for the New York Times. Nobody gets paid directly for writing books or any other written works. It is illegal to sell something that you have written. In this alternate society, people are expected to "give away" their written work for free on the internet. However, writers whose work receives praise are paid a "disp" from the National Cultural Treasury, a tax-funded agency. Under this system, total payments to writers (in the forms of disps) are about ten fold greater than direct payments to writers in the system used in our universe.