at my most idealistic i believe pay-what-you-want is the best way to publish work for the future of humanity and then i look at my itch earnings and out of a handful of PWYW projects, the most any of them earned was $103 (some of them zero!) vs the game I decided to charge $10 for sitting at $20k gross
You must log in to comment.
in reply to @geometric's post:
Pay what you want is def subject to the bystander effect. It's something people point to when they want to assume someone else is taking care of an artist's needs, without having to be bothered with the dirty reality of the situation.
Insisting that people use PWYW is inherently classist and will prevent working-class people from being able to make art because it limits who can afford to make art full-time to those who are already wealthy enough to not need to earn a wage to survive. It's why a certain type of person places a heavy emphasis on the idea that artists should do it for the love of it, and not for money because it makes the art impure. It's fancy words dressing up an attempt to keep working class people from making consequential art, by giving people a ready toolset to discredit art made by people who cannot survive if they give it away.
There was similar push back in the early 1900s about how paying athletes was "contrary to the purity of sports". Naturally not paying athletes gave a huge leg up to those who did not need the income stream.
—🗡️
[deleted]