Working for free

[pickdropper]

Man, Jon's post above is solid and really broke down the categories in a logical way.

From a financial state, I don't know if this is something you can educate people to fix.  As long as there are musicians willing to work for free, there will be promoters seeking them out.  On the other hand, if musicians are exceptional (and can bring in revenue), there will be people willing to pay them.  The toughest road will be for the in-between musicians who are better than the free musicians but aren't distinguishable enough to make themselves more marketable (for whatever reason).

The same sort of holds true for pedal building.  There will always be people who look for the cheapest option available that has a quality level they find acceptable.  For some, that level will be the $100 Klone, for others they may want something that is more expensive because it has better parts, comes from a reputable builder (even if not deserved), or looks more aesthetically pleasing.  You can't really "educate" a consumer that wants the cheapest thing, and you aren't likely to have success convincing somebody who is successfully selling poorly made Klones to increase their pricing to the point that their pedals don't compete well anymore.

The real trick (admittedly difficult) is how to differentiate your product from the myriad of similar products on the market.  The boutique market is getting more and more saturated and separating yourself is getting harder and harder to do.

[pickdropper]

Damn GermanCdn beat me to a similar post because he types faster and more efficiently.   :-)

[midwayfair]

I want you folks to think very carefully about what it takes, sociologically and economically, to allow the possibility of a "Just This Guy" -- someone who didn't exist a hundred years ago -- and decide if you think that making $50 on an acoustic gig is worth it.

...

Maybe many of you didn't ever sell your pedals or play your music at "Just This Guy" prices, but this forum would have only the tiniest fraction of members if those conditions didn't exist ... and everyone here has benefited from the hobbyist and booteeker culture through lower component costs, cheap prototyping, and simple things like the availability of 3PDTs. The concepts of free culture are one reason expertise is free and plentiful, and if you've ever benefited from a lengthy description in a forum post or read an article on Geofex, you've benefited from exactly the same attitude that led to the use of words like "bottom feeder" and "damage."

Also, in any discussion of the economics of quality, I think it's worth recalling the mighty Betamax and digital tape (interestingly, both developed by Sony). How many of you own(ed) anything in these formats, which were vastly superior technology compared with VHS and cassettes? Digital tape was suppressed by people not wanting to digitize music, and consequently became expensive; instead, the world embraced cassettes, which were cheap but absolute crap and capable of easy duplication. Betamax had better resolution than VHS but was more costly, but they thought they could force better technology to beat Cheap.

This is because

Humans are bad at assessing value.

There are always people willing to pay a premium for Premium, but they are a small fraction of the population.

[culturejam]

Okay, Jon. You've convinced me. 


I'm definitely going to have to take issue with the general sentiment I've seen in this thread and many others (on other forums as well), which I will hyperbolically sum up thusly:

If you aren't charging a lot of money for playing music or building pedals, you are a giant asshole who is messing up everything for all the "real" musicians/pedal builders.

I just don't see it that way, and I hope I never do.

Playing music is supposed to be FUN!! Building pedals is supposed to be FUN!! Remember when all this shit was fun?? 

People tend to do fun stuff for low or no cost because the enjoyment of doing fun stuff is part of the "payment". If somebody decides to stop being a hobbyist and "go pro" in a market where there are millions of hobbyists/for-fun "competitors", that's the Pro's problem to handle*. Everybody else doesn't have to stop having fun (or operating fly-by-night hack shops that crash and burn) becuase it annoys the Pro. "Don't compete with me because it's annoying" is a weird way to approach it, I think.  But I've seen it over and over at forums like TGP.

*I'm obviously including myself in this, given the immenent launch of Function f(x).

Flame on.

[pickdropper]

Of course, that is correct, Jon.  There is little doubt about how much all of us gain by the free exchange of knowledge.  I don't measure that gain as a purely financial one.  Sure, some folks will take a small level of knowledge and build poor quality pedals, but the market will likely sort them out.

On a somewhat tangential note, there is an interesting stratification amongst boutique builders as well.  Some of whom embrace communities like this, others that vilify those involved as those who steal their ideas, regardless of whether or not their designs are original in the first place.  Within the DIY community, that stratification seems to exist on some level as well.  In life, we will always have Sneetches.

History has shown that low cost and convenience are usually the final arbiters of success.  VHS was inferior to Betamax, but the record time was significantly longer, which afforded it an advantage.  Super VHS was better as well, but expensive and never adopted on a large scale.

DAT tapes are slightly different as they were buried as much by politics and misguided implantation of SCMS that basically made them a lot less appealing as a recording medium.  Sure they were expensive, but they could've reached mass appeal (which would've lowered prices) if the politics hadn't jammed up the works.

[culturejam]

Just to add:

This same argument crops up (har har) on one of the photography forums I frequent. There are a ba-zillion talented hobbyist photos who occasionally do shoots for free or token cash payment. The Pros say anyone doing free/cheap work is devaluing the entire industry and should die in a fire. The hobbyists say "I'm having fun, so what's the big deal?"

Same thing, different genre.

[midwayfair]

P.s. I say all that, I'll remind everyone, as a guy with a welt on his forehead from the crap he reads on TGP and the gut shots of $200 overdrive.

[jkokura]

Fair points guys. I don't know that I agree with everything you've said, but at some point we have to ask the question:

What is our time worth?

Here's a way I think it's wise to look at it. As a musician, I've put enormous hours into practice, writing, collaborating, rehearsing. I've also invested major bucks into gear, equipment, instruments, and even some into lessons, recording time, recording equipment, CD duplication, artwork and liner notes. This doesn't account for the gas, car repairs, hours on the bus, and headaches I've caused my family and neighbors. We all know that we've invested intangibles into our craft.

What gets my goat is when people ask me to then play for them, for free, without considering the above.

If I offer to play for free, or seek out opportunities to play for free or even go out of my way for a friend, that's my choice. I can choose to do so, or I can choose not to. It's part of the investment, and largely, it's the way that my 'art' is recognized. I choose to do it because of various reasons, not the least of which is the fun and pleasure of creativity and quality art (at least in the eyes of those who love me).

However, when someone requests my time, energy and effort for their own benefit, then expects me to do so free of charge, that's a problem. It's the unrealistic expectation that all musicians are always available at little or no cost simply because they like to play for fun. It's not the paycheck, or rather, the lack thereof, it's the attitude that's the problem for me.

Jacob

[jkokura]

If you aren't charging a lot of money for playing music or building pedals, you are a giant asshole who is messing up everything for all the "real" musicians/pedal builders.

I do see this attitude out there, and I may have even participated in propagating it, but I certainly don't feel like I should support this attitude. I simultaneously see the problem that people who say the above are attempting to speak to, and the problem with the way they/we/I seem to be speaking to the problem.

I think there are lame builders out there who in a sense 'ruin' it for those of us (and CJ, you're in that club now too) who are doing things in a more sustainable fashion. I'm not asking people to simply charge a lot of money for pedals because that's what the rest of us are doing, I'm talking about how to combat the culture of 'why aren't you doing it cheap like them?' Our society, specifically the sub-culture of pedal-addicted-gear-hounds has a tremendously small niche, and it's really, really, congested with several talented and innovative, and many more boring, pedal companies. Long and short is - the attitude of the small audience all of us to cater to that is trending towards devaluing certain skills while holding up the BS mystique that's inherently lying to clients.

Anyone remember the Vemarum-gate issue last year? That pedal still sells. Crazy to think of it, but it does. But then, guys talk about buying my pedals and back out because, 'it's gonna lose too much resale value - I may as well buy JHS.'

Dunno wheres I'm going to at this point, so maybe I'm done for now.

Jacob

[pickdropper]

Jacob, I think that everybody should define the value of their time.  People hit me up from time to time to do a one-off for them and they usually have no idea how much time that I would spend putting something like that together. 

Unfortunately, that often puts me on a divergent path with them.  If it isn't worth my time (or I don't want to do it for my own reasons), I usually decline.  What I don't generally try to do is convince them they should pay more than they are comfortable with.  That is for them to determine.  It's always hardest with me when a friend wants a time-consuming one-off pedal.

With our new company, we are going to have to carefully figure out where things should fit in the market from a pricing perspective.  We will absolutely have to figure out the cost of development, manufacturing and marketing.  The cost of our time will be built into that calculation.  It will be a little bit different in that feedback to is will likely come more from distributors and dealers than from end users, but the market will let us know if our value is in line with what most people think.

Your post actually reminds me a bit of a buddy of mine who is a very talented Linux programmer.  He's well compensated at his day job and, as a hobby, he has contributed his coding skills to some free projects in the past.  People used to approach him all the time and say "you really need to do this (for free of course)."  His response was that he would sometimes do it if the project interested him, but usually would tell them that the beauty of open source programming was that they could pay him to do it or learn how to do it themselves.

[chromesphere]

EDIT: POST NUMBER 666!  \nnn/ \nnn/

My most popular videos are the fuzz and boost in 10 min videos and the soldering tutorial video.  Infact my top 10 are all "something for nothing" videos.

The funny thing is, I find when I post a video about a pcb or "product" I have for sale, occasionally it is meet with hate.  Perhaps the viewer felt like he was being ripped off?  Perhaps he feels I tricked him into watching a free video about something he would have to pay for?   "giveaway" videos are a perfect example of the opposite. 

Whatever it is i'm posting, i post it with my an element of "Take it or leave it". I think its important to have some faith in your product / skill / art / cheese sandwich and don't get too caught up in this "everything for free" mentality. But on the flipside, investing in skill is also important and usually comes with a 0% margin or even a loss. It's a delicate balance between being strong in your resolve but flexible enough to know when what your doing just isn't working (building pedals for nothing, selling something that no one wants, gigging for free, etc.).  Sometimes If i start becoming too strong headed, I have to remind myself to keep my ears / mind open to what people are telling me.

Anyway, that's my opinion and I'm absolutely sticking to it 100% or until someone tells me I'm wrong then I will update it where necessary.
Paul

[pickdropper]

While I can agree with much of what you said, I think we need to further discuss the merits of cheese sandwiches.

[jkokura]

I think I saw a video the other night, a #hashtag segment from Late night, that was about awesome superpowers people wish they had. One was the "ability to make Grilled Cheese by pressing the ingredients between your hands." I agreed, that would be an epic, amazing, and totally useful superpower.

BUT, then you'd have the problem of people coming up and asking "where's my free grilled cheese sandwich?" You'd inevitably have to start charging for them at some point, and of course you'd get the "I'll give you a free Youtube review in return for a sandwich," and then next thing you know, some other guy is undercutting you with sandwiches made on a grill for cheap...

Jacob

[culturejam]

I'm talking about how to combat the culture of 'why aren't you doing it cheap like them?'

I don't know that there is an easy way to fix this. There are always going to be Danelectro and Moer and Joyo type companies making stuff cheaper than you/I can, there will always be fly-by-night hacks with poor business plans and low labor rates, and there will always be snake-oil salesmen selling stuff for way more money than we can get for our stuff. The only choices you/I have are to innovate/differentiate and keep on going or close up shop.

So basically, the people who are educated enough to tell the cheap shit from the over-hyped unicorn dust from the legit products....well, they already build pedals. 

[chromesphere]

^ nicely put culturejam, the reason we are all here