>All due respect, charging what you're worth is not synonymous with >overcharging. > >David Love Fair enough, David, and I agree in principal. So who or what determines the difference? Is it what the market will bear, cumulative public outrage (even though within what the market will bear), specific private outrage of self appointed watchdogs, an industry wide conspiracy of price fixing policies, or a random judgement call? Doesn't the free enterprise system imply a self balancing dynamic where the over pricers are weeded out by non participation of the victims, and the under pricers starve as they work themselves to death? Isn't the whole point of being in business to squeeze the maximum buck out of every minute of our professional existence so we can quit doing it as early as possible with as comfortable a retirement income as we can manage within all the limitations? Ok, maybe that's a tad on the extreme side, but my point in making that post is that no one seems to be proposing a definitive standard as to what constitutes undercharging, overcharging, or charging just right. Everyone has an opinion, but no criteria. In any given region, for any given clientele, as it relates to the technical and political skill level of any given tech, and the type of work that tech is actually doing, it is nearly utterly pointless to argue what does or doesn't constitute an ethical price/performance ratio. Pricing according to who's taller or wears the ugliest socks is, in the long run, a saner and more easily determinable criteria - and doesn't in itself make any more (or less) sense than what I read here daily. This stuff can, and apparently will be debated to the last dying breath of the species, but is never going to be quantified to the point where any of us folks discussing it can give any acceptable indication that we know what the heck we're talking about - so why is so much time and energy expended in this unproductive direction? Is it logic or glands talking? Being a closet hopeful in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I'm looking for evidence of logic, but the doubts are mounting. Incidentally, while I really do appreciate the "all due respect", I don't consider it a factor in points of logic and technicality. For what it's worth. Ron N
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC