Do not charge or take a salary; instead, do this.
I recently read a book called “Non-Violent Communication” by Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD which lead me to looking him up on youtube. I came across a talk by him. He narrates an incident in the video that when he was in counselling, he gets a call from a poor mother who asks him how much he charges for counselling service. He says he felt pathetic about being asked his price which was about counselling. From then on he decide on a principle that he would never charge ever again.
He explain this with an analogy. He says if a giraffe would come to you and ask for help, would it ask for how much you charge? So why do humans ask this question? Imagine if a person is dying and he cannot pay his hospital fee, which happens often as we know, that person can die while on the way to a cheaper hosptial which is miles away from the one which was better and closer to him. This is how brutal this kind of payment systems are.
He says, if you come to me for any service, think you are a giraffe and come, as animals never are going to ask, how much do you charge, right?. He tells people to pay him what they can, the idea is that people shouldn’t feel the pinch while paying you. If they have been over generous, the good deed automatically passes to the people who haven’t been able to pay him. He goes as far as to claim, that he likes to be poor, but then jokes that however he makes sure, he or his two three neighbours don’t go broke at the same time.
I loved this system, but I am haven’t talked about this with my neighbour. Will they agree? Will you agree? As you are my 1st degree connection in case you found this blogpost in your feed? Let me know.
Why be so greedy da? What this mad rush for everyone to be super successful in our society. Can everyone be on those reality TV show, where the VC’s decide you get the money or not.
I know, it is again a utopian vision. I say not really, it is a paradigm shift, on how we make money, on how we look at our work? Why do we want to do rent capture from the poor?
Lot of businesses have this freemium model. For example - ChatGPT charges 200 USD for its pro plan, they haven’t spelled it out, but I have no doubt that its a way of subsidising the free users so they don’t keep running out their investors money.
I have started on this path, yes pay me what you like. Yes, I am looking for work, please check my CV here