Why It’s Good to Pay for Things

Seth Godin recently published a podcast about how mass email is a broken system. Why? Because it’s free. Spammers can send a million emails for free, and even if they only make one dollar doing that, they’ll keep doing it. Because it’s free. 

Yesterday, I published a review of my subscription to The New Paper. The New Paper is a daily round up of the top newsworthy stories, delivered with short descriptions that aren’t misleading or biased. I pay $6 per month to get a text message from The New Paper every weekday. When news outlets offer free news, they have to make all their money by selling ads. And the articles that get the most clicks generate the most ad revenue. And so, we get misleading, sensationalist headlines. 

In March and April of this year, I produced an online class for Jeremiah Davis called Full-Time Creator Class. With 71 videos, and more than 14 hours of content, it’s a beast. We sell it for $450. A few friends reached out asking for a discount, so I just added them to the class for free. I can see every student’s progress on the class. Guess what? The students who paid for it actually used it–they had skin in he game. Meanwhile, the free recipients watched the few videos with enticing titles, and left the rest untouched.

If you’re a freelancer, it might be tempting to lower your prices to be competitive. Needy clients will bargain with you, making you feel bad for “being too expensive.” Don’t lower your rates. Nine times out of ten, when I’ve lowered my rates for clients, they’ve nitpicked the product, I’ve been overworked, and the relationship didn’t last. 

Any way you spin it, paying for things is good. When people pay for things, they’re invested in the success of the product. On the flip side, nothing in life is really free. Free news means advertisers are paying for clicks. Free work means the freelancer is paying for it with nights and weekends. This is why it’s good to pay for things.