personally, I try to
[2022-05-16 12:04:21 PM] : personally, I try to avoid having to make individual personal judgements on stuff like this. you can decide to not work with people who behave a certain way, but I think of that separate from whether or not you give them something for free.
I have my hard line "we don't sell to/support people who do XYZ" list. and we also have a "things we give for free, and in what scenarios" list.
personally, I have never seen "I'll pay you back later" work out, so I'd rather either give it for free with no expectations or simply say "sorry, the best we have is the PPP option."
1 Reply
[2022-05-16 12:08:09 PM] : That's very helpful. Thanks! Yeah, I was skeptical of getting paid later.
Would you be comfortable sharing your lists of who you don't sell to and when you give stuff for free?
[2022-05-16 12:31:15 PM] : it's not exactly written down like that (should be maybe?)
short answer is that we try to give away as much free stuff as we can so that there's always a "here's the free thing, save up for the paid thing if you really want it"
we also are more likely to offer something for free whens someone demonstrates initiative, and basically never give stuff for free when people ask for it (but also don't get offended, esp once I realized many cultures just have haggling built into their nature).
[2022-05-16 12:31:50 PM] : the people we don't sell to wouldn't be anybody surprising, though.
[2022-05-16 12:40:33 PM] : Also, you say that one of the attributes of an audience is that THEY PAY.
If they promise to "pay later", they in effect are trying to get you to finance their business. If they believe in their business, they should find a real financier (lender or investor) instead.
[2022-05-16 12:44:17 PM] : students is probably the easiest "I can't pay" audience. i treat that as an investment, less in the individual and more in the future of the broader audience
[2022-05-16 12:48:03 PM] : but i try to make it so I'm not deciding on each individual person.
[2022-05-16 12:48:40 PM] : make a decision you'd be comfortable making the default 99% of the time. and it's your rule, you're allowed to break it if you decide to, or update them as you are able to/learn more about the impact of the rule.
[2022-07-02 03:48:21 PM] : somewhat tangential: as someone who's originally from a poor country AND was teaching myself to code when i was in my teens, i'm immensely grateful to all the people i had emailed back then asking if they could consider giving me their learning resource for free, and to my surprise many did
[2022-07-02 05:45:37 PM] : yeah I find that most independent creators are willing to do something, esp if people ask nicely
[2022-07-02 08:59:02 PM] : i think many of the people who did, had a 30x500-ish MO overall — maybe even were in this class