Charge for Upload Time

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Bill H
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Bill H »

Actually, there are pretty clearly defined rules (and in most states, laws) which define "profiteering." They have to do with selling at prices which exceed the profit margins at which products are sold in normal market conditions, plus documentable transportation costs.

The specific instance to which the prof was responding had to do, iirc, with gasoline at $10.00/gal and similar pricing.
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califdon
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by califdon »

Yes, Christopher makes a good case. But, confidentially, tell me more about this senile old wealthy woman who wants a website for her cat ...
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Bill H
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Bill H »

What would be the consensus on hotels with a normal rate of $60/night who on NASCAR weekends charge $285/night with a three night minimum? I know this is about rates charged for computer programming, but...

And my cat would definitely rate a website of her own.
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by matthijs »

@Bill H: what exactly are you asking? Not sure I understand your question. Are you asking what is a "reasonable" price for a hotel?

The thing is, people pay what they want to pay for stuff. Whether it's a $3000 computer, a $10k website, a $20k one hour peptalk speech by a celebrity or a $300k painting. Sellers can ask what they want, when they want. Everybody makes a profit (and should make one!), otherwise it makes no sense to trade. The only - very important - preconditions here are that all sides of the trade are or can be well informed and that there's not some kind of monopoly by the seller. In that case, the buyer has no real choice. That's why the free market system fails both at the bottom and top end of the system (or when the specific section of the market is rigged).

So, I don't see what's wrong when a client really wants you to provide a service to him/her and really wants to pay what you ask for. Maybe it's friday afternoon, almost weekend and this client of yours comes with a last-minute small job. It's important for the client that it gets done before the weekend and so it has great value to him. At the same time you were just at the point of wrapping up your work week, cold beer ready. So you ask for a bit higher price then normal. The client is only happy that you are still able and willing to do it. Everybody happy.
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Bill H
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Bill H »

Well, hotels definitely have what amounts to a monopoly when 30,000 people descend for a race on a locale which has 4,000 rooms which are normally only 50% full. People only need to stay one night in a room that usually rents for $65, but are required to pay for three nights, two of which they don't need, at a rate of over four times normal rate. They aren't coming to the town to stay in the hotel, they are coming to spend one day watching a race, and staying in the hotel is a necessity making that possible due to travel times. I have a hard time seeing that as "people pay[ing] what they want to pay for stuff" with respect to the hotel charges.

The hotel presumably makes a profit with a 55% occupancy rate at $65/night, so what are they making at 100% occupancy rate at $285/night. I guess it's no longer fashionable to consider what constitutes a moral degree of profit. "As much as you can get" seems to be today's mantra, but that seems more like pillaging to me than it does marketing. I would not be able to sell a product which cost no more, for which I worked no harder, and which inconvenienced me no more, but for which I charged 12 times the profit. I would not be willing to force a customer to pay for three nights when he needed only one. You make a lot of money doing things like that, but I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror.

If I were a client in the circumstances you describe, Friday afternoon etc, and my provider did the job and charged me a higher price, I would pay the price and on Monday I would be looking for a new provider. I've been using your services for all this time and you charge me extra for a favor? Not me you don't.
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by matthijs »

The thing is: you don't charge "extra". You just charge what you want to charge. And a client pays what he/she wants to pay. Prices of stuff in every market fluctuate and change/differ depending on many factors. Why would it be wrong for web professionals to set their own prices?

If you make the choice to be consistent in your pricing, that's fine. You could make that one of your unique selling points ("With us, you always pay $50, no matter what job"). But if you want to set your prices project by project, depending on factors you decide on, why would that be "wrong"?
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Bill H
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Bill H »

In the case of the rush job you charged me extra for, not "wrong," just not particularly wise, because you lost me as a client. You may say it was not "extra," but I'm not stupid, and I can recognize that it was more than I would normally have had to pay. How you see it may satisfy you, but how your client sees it is what his feelings about it are going to be based on.

And I guess it depends on what you define as "moral." When someone makes larger than normal profit because the buyer is at a disadvantage, when one is able to "coerce" more out of him due to his exigent circumstances, I think it is not moral to take advantage of that person's disadvantage. That's just me. I was raised by an Air Force colonel who was also an Episcopal priest, so maybe I think a bit differently than some.
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by matthijs »

Well, it could be the case that the client, after agreeing on a certain job for a certain price, decides afterwards to go to someone else for another job. He or she is perfectly free to do that. It could also be the case that he/she is so happy that the web professional was able to squeeze in that work at the last moment and delivering excellent quality and service, that he will definitely return next time. There are many different situations possible. But I'm not sure if we will make any progress in the discussion this way. You can give an example of situation A, I can give an example of situation B, etc. Both could be "right" in our imagined situations. Each professional, each client and each situation is different. Who am I to judge what is right or wrong?

And about what is moral about "larger than normal" profit: that's a difficult question! Is profit moral? And if so, what is "normal" profit? Should we all have exactly the same income? Should all developers charge the same rate at every job all the time?

Read some of my earlier comments in this thread: there are endless ways to charge for the work you do. In a free world, it's you who decides how and what to charge. And a client is free to choose with whom to work for which conditions. If for both a fixed hourly rate is chosen to be the preferred choice, then that's up to them. If both agree for some other exchange, then so be it.
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Christopher
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Christopher »

This is an interesting conversation in our modern world because it does point out the cognitive dissonance people have today about markets, freedom, etc. The things we are describing are much like the farmer, miller and dairyman of yore. We are small business people who very much work in a pure market. Our advertising is mostly done via word of mouth. And as has been described, our rates are negotiated very much by the local situation. However, we live in the same world with giant banks, multi-national corporations, and in out own industry companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Apple, etc. The reality of those markets is very un-pure and all are somewhere between monopoly and oligopoly. Yet there is this idea that market freedom makes the same sense one all scales. I don't think our understanding has caught up with the changes in the world over the last 50-100 years.
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califdon
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by califdon »

Christopher wrote:I don't think our understanding has caught up with the changes in the world over the last 50-100 years.
I believe that's true. It's certainly a fact that individual contractors and very small businesses operate under very different conditions than the giant corporations and that seems to be a problem, at times. For a dramatic example of this, just consider agriculture, where, I think I have read, the majority of our food products are grown, processed and marketed by just a handful of corporations. There are efficiencies of scale, but also a narrowing of choice and maximizing of profits to the few. I wouldn't try to judge the net "goodness" of such a system, and anyway we've really strayed from the topic that Jonah posted, so I'll shut up now.
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Jonah Bron
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Re: Charge for Upload Time

Post by Jonah Bron »

On the contrary, I'm loving this digression. This actually brings me to another question: How much do you charge for what?
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