What good are articles if they are duplicate content?

I just don't get it.

[Storyman]

A friend keeps recommending that I write and submit articles to one of those many article submission sites. Sure, when someone post one of the articles on their site the links are helpful, but I don't understand what benefit the people posting the articles are getting. After all it is widely reported that search engines do not count duplicate content.

Can someone clarify for me why anyone would bother posting articles from an article submission site? I just don't get it.

[Robert Charlton]

What good are articles if they are duplicate content?

Storyman - Good question...

Sure, when someone post one of the articles on their site the links are helpful, but I don't understand what benefit the people posting the articles are getting.

I'm not sure that the links from duplicate articles distributed on article submission sites are that helpful either. I doubt that dupe articles are helpful in conferring link reputation... but that's a long discussion... and my guess is that the quality of the sites that use these articles is low enough that the links also aren't much good for traffic.