We hear that writers for CrunchGear, the gadgets blog run by TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, have had their pay cut by more than half, from $25 a post to $12 $3,000 a month to $1,500. One wonders: Has Arrington simply found that he can get away with paying bloggers less? Or, in cutting his writers' wages, is he tacitly admitting that his efforts to expand his empire — from the niche of covering Web startups to the more popular subjects of cell phones and digital cameras — haven't been successful? Update: We also hear a writer was fired from MobileCrunch, told that the wireless-focused site was on the verge of getting shut down. And now we've heard from CrunchGear and MobileCrunch editor John Biggs. His comments, after the jump.