When to charge?

In my opinion whenever a stranger needs something from you that isn't about community, critically important, personal or life and death, then you should both enter into some kind of contract and there should be remuneration from that person. Which is an opinion I'm working through. So the more trivial the thing? Yeah, definitely there should be a fee.

Oh yeah though, you BOTH should see it as trivial, had to edit to add. If you see something as very trivial but to another person it's terribly important then there can be a problem.

The more important the thing? Then other considerations should be involved. Like my favorite example is if someone is dying of thirst. Stranger or no, give them some water!

However, with a business, there should probably always be a fee, unless it's community, and the more important it is to that business, the bigger the fee should be.

That split between human beings and businesses fascinates me and I think it's very hard to get right, and that even massive corporations themselves are screwing up with these kinds of things! Businesses are trying to charge human beings for things they shouldn't and giving things away free to businesses because they do to human beings when they shouldn't, in my opinion.

That messes up monetary flows, cripples economies, and can really mess up people's lives.

In general I think businesses should charge businesses.

Money helps prevent exploitation of people or organizations, as you get an equal exchange at the point of transaction versus relying on goodwill going forward. That is, you don't just do someone a favor and wait and see if they'll return it, when there is a proper exchange involving money. Of course the monetary system can fail many ways, but optimally it protects people.

Putting out things I'm pondering helps me ponder them. That does not mean these opinions are definitely correct. But it's my blog so I can put them here.


James Harris