This is a really great thread.
Earlier I stupidly did quite a few things for free (consultancy, organisation…) because I somehow felt it was for a worthy cause. If you find yourself about to work for free you have to ask yourself whether the people you’re ‘collaborating’ with are also working for free. If they are getting paid, then so should you. It’s ok to do a few pro bono or low-paid things if you really love the project or will get a lot of non-financial benefit out of it. But it’s not ok to accept those conditions on a regular basis as it creates the expectation from those doing the hiring that it’s ok to underpay people - pulls down the level of compensation for everyone. This is even true if you don’t need the money - if you have a well-paid dayjob/other income but take away jobs for free from others in the community who need that kind of work to pay their rent, that’s not ok.
I think if I had read a thread like this a few years ago I wouldn’t have let myself get exploited like I did.
I could still do a lot better in terms of fees (I’m also still a newbie), but here are the kind of amounts I’ve gotten so far:
Festival workshop (my first)
Time - 2hrs + 8hrs preparation
Pay - €100 +materials, +free entry (+1) to a 3-day music festival, +free travel, food+drink tokens
Consultation Workshop
Time - 11hrs
Pay - €480
Demo booth at a conference
Time - 16hrs (shared by 4 people - 4 hrs each) + 4hrs preparation
Pay - €500 plus free entry to a fancy expensive (fairly boring) conference for 4 people
About Waag - I have no personal experience, but I did take a look into the DITOs Science Bus job advertised recently as it sounded pretty cool… but €1000 +accommodation & food seemed like a very small fee for 4 weeks work requiring such specific expertise/experience and with so much responsibility.
I don’t want to point the finger solely at Waag as there are plenty of other (worse) cases… but it would be great if we could start to change this everywhere. With its strong reputation for open, fair and community-based projects as well as a serious player in EC projects Waag could really be a leader here.