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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zak S" data-source="post: 7735012" data-attributes="member: 90370">Pointing out that you've moved goalposts from argument A to argument B isn't being "stuck in a realm of binaries"Pointing out that companies like Evil Hat and Green Ronin and those who pay 3-5 cents per word has made decisions that are worse for creators and audiences than LotFP and companies that find ways to pay people more isn't being "stuck in a realm of binaries". It's contrasting 2 different ways of doing business, of which one is better.That is just a way of rewording what I already said: "These companies are bigger than LotFP therefore have to adopt these practices you don't like".Let's start with an important fact:We are not discussing companies that pay a "fantastic" flat fee.We are discussing companies (Evil Hat, Green Ronin, their ilk) that pay a subpoverty level flat fee.And "triple" doesn't describe the difference between the subpoverty wages they're paying and the amount these people are keeping.So, rewording:"If I, as a publisher, pay a terrible flat fee but don't end up making much (as in I don't pull in as much as if I had paid myself as a writer at my offered writer rates) I'm an ethical publisher, but if I pay that same terrible flat fee but the product ends up taking off to the point that I make (probably way more than triple because even triple would be barely minimum wage and the publishers are making way more than that) what my terrible fee was, I'm now unethical?"Bingo.The creator should benefit from their creation. If DC has some product (say: Superman) that Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster have done the creative work on then but DC's benefitting from this arrangement more than Jerry and Joe because the product did better than they expected and Jerry and Joe took a bad split because they wanted to eat, then when the business takes off, the ethical thing for DC to do is to ignore how the law says it can technically benefit wildly from Jerry and Joe's desperate situation and cut them in on the deal.And the end result of that would be that Jerry and Joe stick around and happily do more good work for DC's fanbase.If Jerry and Joe are at a ripe age sitting over a desk making Junior Woodchuck comics until their fingers are falling off while DC is rolling in dough from Superman, this situation is unethical.If the business is only sustainable by paying creators subpoverty wages and making bad product for customers that business does not need to be kept "sustainable". It should stop existing.</blockquote>

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