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Do I provide FREE services or few bucks "donation"?
For completely non-profit organizations for the better (where there's no paid employees), my educational/experimental research or other circumstances depending, I will consider proposals. But for everyone else who are trying to profit or are, I request to be treated professionally. Plus if you want to be taken seriously and respected, as a business, artist, or organization, hiring the right professionals & appropriately compensate for their hard work just like you yourself understand what hard work is and the cost of having that.
I will go on photography adventures or whip out web stuff for fun, but even fun is a lot of hours, so if I receive requests, I will start charging. I know there is a risk in hindering relations, causing resentment, or making awkward, but as much as I want to be friends with everyone, I wouldn't expect a friend who's trying to earn a living like I am, to work for free or low compensation.
Serious businesses find a way, use their own money they make, donations, or borrow money to start businesses. I purchase my laptop, software, camera equipment, and electronic equipment with my money I earn in order to provide or further my services and currently fund my own projects. Facebook is free for users but costs millions to run, so they do it through advertising or borrowing until then. If there are services not provided like web hosting or outsource partner, it goes on client's bill.
Out of respect, here's why I suggest to *you* also, to not always provide free services: - That would mean you would likely have to provide free for everyone to be fair. Otherwise you may come off as playing "favorites" or liking one over another. Sometimes I feel caught in the middle myself and pressures more than a mutual understanding if I said "They're paying me."
- Everyone wants to be your best friend. By buddying up to you, they may think they'll get a better deal or freebies. Be warned, you might not know who your real friends are.
- Respect. People may assume our work is "easy," can be whipped up and not realize or respect the value of our work, thus expect free or low cost. Websites are VERY valuable. It defines an individual, business, or organizations' brand/identity in an online presence to the world. It can make or break a trust. Web applications bring functionality to the site and user interaction. Good websites and web applications are not simply thrown together. I take into consideration technical design, psychology (e.g. color), clean code, user-friendly interface, browser compatibility, accessibility (which also helps Search Engines), web standards, and so forth. Being compensated appropriately to industry standards doesn't mean you're greedy, it means "Your hard work is valuable." Regardless of industry, company, or their pay scale, if someone offers nothing or a few bucks for your website/web app work, either they don't have finances to support their business and hope for a deal or it may come off as "Your work isn't worth much for us to pay that much." You want them to respect you as much as you respect them.
- Identity. I definitely would not want to be referred to by others because I am the cheapestand instead for quality work. In my early years, I may have been referred to the cheapest, then I changed my rates. Yes, I lost opportunities that way, but I end up with serious clients with continuous work. In addition, top paying clients who understand value of our work may believe there's a negative reason for being so cheap.
- You may be "taking away" opportunities from paid professionals who work hard to make a living. I realized that more and more as some friends who are professional photographers were looking for gigs to help make ends meet. Each time someone asked me to take pictures, it felt like I was taking away a paid opportunity from friends'. Even as a developer, there's a lot of people who will get someone else they know who will do it for free or at a low price and usually they are not officially a developer by profession. Us hard working professionals may suffer the consequences in the end.
- A professional mentioned that it's "lowering industry standards." That opened my eyes, and agree. There's a false misconception that I can whip up a website or a set of photos in no time, but in reality building a site is like building a house. It's a lot of hours, hard work, and a lotof thought, on consideration with brand/identity. Good photos aren't created in a snap, we have to adjust aperture, focus, frame, etc and consider factors like lighting. Whether you're a business, organization or artist, it's not always easy as cheese to produce the final result. Even making cheese is not easy.
I'm pretty sure there's many more reasons that I may revisit. Anyone can be cheap and free if they wanted to and for us who earn income, we cannot compete on free. But an occasional freebie could be a good thing as well. Sometimes you just want to "donate" something one in awhile to the lucky person(s). Sometimes you get part ownership or percentage if a project becomes successful. Or when you're starting out or want to "prove" it to a potential client, it can open up doors for more opportunities. Use your intuition to feel out if the person or business you're going to give freebies to is respectfully compensating others for their work, and not just looking to score freebies from everyone who'd "work" for them. Make yourself stand out and want your quality work and not based price. If you're that good, people will find a way to increase compensation to get what they want. Don't sell yourself short, and I'll try not to either.
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