The online business world is different to many other businesses in the fact that it is global… far more global than most of the businesses in your local area.
This also means that the subject of business ethics pops up more often than not, especially if you’re using freelancers – remember, there’s usually (especially for smaller jobs) no such things as a contract, no such thing as minimum wage and few of the other things that would be present in a regular job.
What do you think about ethics in online business, and what situations have you come across?
I’ll give you an example. A couple of weeks ago, I wanted a small job done – nothing too difficult, but fairly menial labour, labour that would take around half a day to do. I did not want to waste that time, as I could use it for more productive things so I looked for someone else to do it. Now I asked around, had a thread posted up at various internet forums, looking for a wage per hour.
Of course, the cheaper the better – that’s what we all look for. However, I was not expecting just how cheap bids I was going to be getting – I ended up with two guys bidding $0.5 and $0.3 per hour respectively.
That means for the full job (which in the end took ten hours) they would have made $5 and $3!
Now… I couldn’t turn them down for being cheaper than everyone else, so I decided to work with the $0.3/hour guy.
He did the work to the best of his ability, which was pretty decent… my conscience didn’t allow me to only pay him $3, so I threw on fifty dollars on top of that. Far more than the job was probably worth in today’s market (even so, that’s only $5/hour) but I felt a lot better than I would have done. His reaction was pretty cracking too 
Would you have hired the $0.3/hour guy, and what would you have ended up paying him?
I do have a reason for this though… I remember working for such rates. I first tried the whole “make money online” thing last summer and I started out writing articles, at similar rates ($0.004 at the time) only because I didn’t know any better – the people that work at these kinds of rates are probably similar. If you can afford a computer, you should be charging a lot more than $0.3/hour. 
Short post today, but just wanted to see people’s opinions on a potentially controversial topic.
I haven’t done this on TUK yet (pretty surprising, hey) but Blog Premiere got redesigned, so introducing you guys to the sexiest looking blogging forum around at the moment… 
May 15th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
it sure looks really nice. Very professional looking
NDS Games’s last blog post..By: Joe Cole
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May 15th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Wow, that’s quite a markup. Remind me to charge $150 a day for my services
Only jostling. I’m not sure if I would’ve done the same as you. I’d probably have paid him the $3 and be done with it, reason being is that it’s really all I can afford with my online money making ventures. If I was a lot better off, then sure I’d probably pay a lot more.
I like to think that you get rich by the more you save, rather than you spend
Rhys’s last blog post..If at First You Don’t Even Try, Dust Yourself Off and Succeed
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May 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I would’ve hired him and then payed him the amount I see suitable. The reason I would’ve hired him in the first place was that he was the only one to offer such a low price
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May 15th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Well, I see it differently. If I were hiring someone, even for menial jobs, to me there’s a minimum I *should* pay them, wether it’s written down or not. I would not have gone for the cheapest, partly because I adhere to the triangle of “cheap fast and good: pick two”.
Andrea_R’s last blog post..Staypress
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May 15th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Ethics is really important on two accords. First, it is just the right thing to do… creating enemies is never nice, and acting ethically makes the world go round. Second, people actually flock to ethical bloggers and marketers. If you conduct an ethical business, it will actually increase your traffic and revenue in the long term.
Jim’s last blog post..The Net Fool Dot Com Gets a PageRank 4
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May 15th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I also would find it hard to not reward someone who was doing that kind of service for you. Even though you are paying for him to do that it’s always nice to throw in a few extra bucks if they deserve it.
But I’m just a nice guy
.
Rob’s last blog post..OIO Publisher
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
That is one hell of a tip! I kind of think it depends on whether you think you will work with him again in the future. Its kind of like going to a bar, if you know you will be ordering more drinks you tip the bartender good so he will get back to you quickly when your drink is empty. But if you are only planning on ordering one drink then the tip doesn’t matter because you will probably never see the guy again. It seems like you must plan on using this guy again, or at least maintain him as connection?
As someone said before, I would have been leary on going with the cheapest bidder just because of the old adage “you get what you pay for”. Sounds like you got way more than you had originally planned to pay for!
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May 16th, 2008 at 12:23 am
I think ethics is a stupid thing to bring up. If someone is willing to work for such a ridiculous rate, it’s not your place to say “hey, I’d rather give you 10 times what you asked for.” Honestly I think anyone who works for 30 cents an hour deserved to be ripped off though as you could make 20 times more working at McDonald’s doing nothing.
Stak Loaded’s last blog post..Brian Campbell is a Noob
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May 16th, 2008 at 8:35 am
You did what you felt it was right. That’s really important.
Aleks’s last blog post..Funny picture – How to shit on pedestrians
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May 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
You did right. But I could not have done so as I do not earn much.
By the way Blog Premiere looks very good. I will be joining it soon.
Agent 001’s last blog post..So Must do Tweaks for Windows XP
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May 16th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Ethics and integrity are very important, regardless of what you are involved in. Good job on topping up for the work performed!
Mo’s last blog post..Why Blog Posts Are Like Sticky Notes
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May 16th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I can only imagine his face, lol. And the blog forum is pretty sexy, and I wonder why I’m not registered there…hmmm…
Zac Davis’s last blog post..Free “Sponsored By” Links
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May 19th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Karma is a good thing to invest in especially when you don’t have to. I think that is a testament to ones character. Ethics are quite important especially in an industry and world that encourages many to act like they have none.
Big Ben Patton’s last blog post..Traffic Generation part 5
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