Many folks were shocked by the concept of paying top bookmarkers–gasp!–money for their hard work.

However, over the past two weeks people are starting to understand that there is nothing wrong with volunteer firefighter becoming a paid fighterfighter, if that is what they want to do of course.

Interesting feedback on the concept from an Interview with two top DIGGers follows:

Q10- Also Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. intends to hire top summiter( sneezers ) from various social news site like digg.com and reddit, do you have any comments on that?

Thomas: Hey there is nothing wrong with getting a bit of cash in the deal. Kevin rose didn’t start out wanting to get rich off the deal, but now he is well on his way to making some good coin off DIGG. If I can too..more power to it! Thats the Internet way…come up with an idea first and then make cash!

Derek:Jason has made some pretty compelling points lately regarding social bookmarking. I tend to agree with him that heavy contributors to these sites are doing valuable work. If he is confident that he can get a return on his investment from the people he selects, then more power to him.