barsoomcore said:
I mean, maybe for you, how hard someone worked on something IS a contributing factor to that thing's value. That's cool, but I can't quite make out what you're saying here.
That's fair, I'll try to be more concise and see if that helps anything.
If you paid for it, you valued it at least as much as the mechanic asked you to. Just because you'd like to have paid less doesn't mean you didn't value it that much. If you hadn't agreed with his valuation, you wouldn't have paid.
Before I go into this, a touch of background into myself (which hopefully will make my reply a little more clear).
I'm an odd bird, money means nothing to me other than the ability to buy things. I never got the "Pride and satisfaction of a hard day's work" from a paycheck that everyone always told me I would get. All a paycheck has ever been to me is some money I could buy things with, overshadowed by the image of the weeks of my life wasted being miserable doing something I didn't want to do at someone else's beck and call. That being the case...
Yes, in our theoretical example, I did pay the mechanic. But that doesn't mean, in my mind, that I thought his service was worth the price. It means noone else was cheaper, and I needed the car. I still think his services were worth a fair price, almost always far less than what he demanded. As I said earlier to someone, I am a very big proponent of fairness in business dealings, and I don't think our theoretical mechanic's prices are fair. More likely, I see the mechanic's practice as legal blackmail.
You don't get to decide that. Or rather, you can only answer for yourself, which is my whole point. We each of us decide for ourselves how much something is worth -- hence, it matters not how hard something was for the producer to create, only how much it is valued by the purchaser.
(in response to my comment: This harkens back to art pricing, and is art generally worth hundreds of dollars.)
I was speaking as a buyer, not as the artist (sorry if that was unclear). As a buyer, I get to decide exactly that. As an artist, I have to
try to both guess that, and slightly influence it in some way (hopefully through the quality of the work). I agree that the buyer, on an individual basis, decided the value of something. The fact that in many cases people (both artist and buyer) expect the artist to decide, in a vacuum, the value of a piece of work astounds me, and always has.
Nothing is generally worth anything. Everything is specifically worth something to each person individually. As a seller your challenge is always finding those individuals who value your product enough to pay the price you need to sell it at.
What I meant by 'generally' is, not on a case-by-case basis, but just in general. I also meant 'to most people, most of the time'. It was a generalization for convenience sake (which admittedly, can get you in trouble). In that case, there is entirely such a thing as generally. Most products on the market have an imposed "general value" that you are informed of by the producer (and I hate that, too), just by having a price tag on the shelf. This does not mean that you agree with it, of course.
But what I had meant to say was, in general, is art (any art) worth that much? And my own answer, for myself as a buyer, is No. No art is ever worth that kind of money to me as a buyer. But, as I said, I can produce art for myself is I want it, and that makes my situation apparently different from many peoples', who cannot produce works of art which as as good as they want art to be.
It doesn't have to take anything into account. You can price it however you like. Maybe you're rich and don't need to worry about materials and labour. If in your case you need to make the production of art a paying venture then you're going to have to produce work good enough to get people to pay enough that you can cover your costs. Setting your prices isn't the key. That's trivial. Producing the work that other people will value is.
This, I think, is just a difference of opinion. I will take the effort of anyone into consideration in most cases (be it monetary or otherwise), beause I respect that someone went to great effort. If my kid is supposed to clean her room, and 6 ours later it's still a hellish mess, but I can tell she busted her rump, I'll let that slide, beause I respect that she put in real effort (a trite example granted, but it was off the top of my head). If our fictional car mechanic had to go to great lengths to fix that car, had to order parts from japan for my subaru (happend), had to work late to get it done when he promised it'd get done (never happened), then that is going to color how I look at what he's asking for. I will not pay more just because it was hard, but I will take that effort into consideration when it comes time to decide if his asking price was
fair. If the amount included as "Labor" seems just, as if there was actual labor involved instead of 'he popped the hood, drained the oil, and changed the break pads, which took about 15 minutes and he could have doine in his sleep'.
Well, so what if you reconsider if you won't pay the price? I mean, I don't get what you're saying here. If you "will not pay more" then why "stop to reconsider"? I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me.
What I mean is, I won't pay more, but I may stop to question whether or not the price I'm looking at is fair or not. If it's fair, then I no longer consider it 'paying more'. Also, if there's an additional fee just for 'labor', then that's asinine. To put it on topic, if I added a fee onto every illustration I did for a client labelled "Labor", I imagine I'd be laughed out of freelancing. But since I include my labor (and materials) in the price the publisher's say they are willing to pay, I'm fine.
or get glasses. However, the job will get harder with age.
