What people today, especially the "I'm entitled" crowd, fail to realize is that the concept of "Supply and Demand" is based on a two way process where goods and services, "Of Equal Value" are Willingly exchanged between the two parties. Many think they are "entitled" to get something for nothing. That's not the way the universe works. :O

What the customer is really saying: I have an idea (That's the hard part, my work is done) Can you make the program do x (Is it possible?) For exposure (I'll tell everyone I know a sucker that works for free) or If it gets big (Not sure if it will work and don't want to pay to find out. Also I need someone to blame if it fails), Then we can talk stock options (like giving you the option to buy my stock). It's your chance to get in on the ground floor (without you, there's no business). It's a chance of a lifetime (my chance, my lifetime). You'll be sorry you missed out (on giving up 40+ hours of your life to make me rich, maybe). Okay, but don't steal my idea (that isn't worth paying to develop) or I'll sue you (I don't have money to pay you, but I have a huge slush fund to pay a lawyer).

My dad is a photographer and will sometimes massively reduce his prices for those who obviously can not afford him but have a good idea/cause. Other than that, no one works for free.

Musicians live with this constantly. "Come do a showcase!" "Do this one show for exposure and I'll book you better gigs." "Work for the jar at the front door." Problem is, some are so desperate, they accept and thereby devalue us all and make it harder for everyone, including themselves to be compensated appropriately.

I think clients think of designers like product in supermarkets; "when is the sale?" "How can I get out of this cheaply?" "I'll just try it out and return." Recently I made a logo desing for an investment company website, he went silent after receiving the design, looked at his website and it's there, the logo I made, proudly put big on front page. The big irony here is, he deals basically in money and can't make himself to pay 69 usd for a professional logo desing. Blah

I do SEO and recently one of my old clients came back asking me to update his site. I ran an audit and gave him my estimate - 48 hours. Since I worked with this guy almost 10 years ago I've raised my rates. Back then I charged him $25, now I charge $75-90. He asked if for old time sake I would give him the old rate, so I said sure. Then he said, "And store credit is OK?". Uh no. I don't need $1800 store credit with a laptop repair shop! He got all indignant like the customer in this story. Needless to say I'm NOT helping him.

"Sorry, I need to eat! Good luck out there!" Clearly best response. Work is always going to cost money, I really don't comprehend some people.

Kudos to Zach for keeping his responses civil...unlike the guy trying to get something for nothing. More people need to realize that responding to nastiness with more nastiness just breeds more hatred. The last thing this world needs.

I've had similar experiences. I'm an electrician and I've had people ask me to do jobs in their homes and offer to pay me for the materials I had to use, but not for the labour. If my expertise is not valued, then do the job yourself and let me know how long it take the fire department to respond to the call.

Well, he obviously got plenty of exposure out of it.

So familiar. I once had a guy do the exposure spiel for a website to me when I was still green. But after showing him the first mock ups he wasxoffended that I put a "created by" credit on the pages and demanded I remove them. I told him to go find some other fool after getting treated like that.

First mistake was to set a rate of $15 / hour. Right off the bat the so called client thought this guy was worth peanuts, and de-valued him before the conversation even starts. If you're just starting out as a web coder, $50/hour should be the starting price to weed out people who would take advantage of you.

Gawd. As a photographer and graphic design graduate, this has happened. On the flip side, though, so has "Really, only $##? Wow! You need to charge more! Thank you!"

I am just here to read all the hidden comments of unpopular opinions

This customer must come from DeviantArt. This site is full of people wanting work done for free.

I have frequently quit jobs when the scope creep escalates to me putting in hours for free. Sorry, my time and my life are precious. If you want quality results, don't expect anything for free. You get what you pay for.

Not sure about their place of residence, but here he'd easily be able to sue a few hundred or thousand bucks out of the other person for the "a*****e" alone. But yeah, 15$/hour sound pretty cheap... I might hire Zach for some project ;)

So the designer gets stock options if the business takes off. ?? Or he can send his friends over, and they can barter for "free"work. And what if the guy's idea is just bad and not the designer's fault? That's Free Exposure nobody wants.

This programmer was lucky to find out upfront that this guy was a jerk. He would have been a nightmare client to work for. (And the programmer should charge more for his work too. $15 is not too much for writing code)

I have a small shop.Among other things, we sell books. I've had people ask me if I have a copy machine because they don't want to buy the book, just to copy 3 pages from it. I tell them no, I don't, and it would also be a violation of the author's copyright.

Just amazing! Programmer handled the situation with restraint AND class! Mr "ground floor opportunity" is gonna stay RIGHT where he belongs! ON THE GROUND FLOOR!

The only people who react with hostility and spite when faced with logic and reason tend to be bullies or come from a background of nurtured a sense of entitled-ness. A dime a dozen.

I admire him for standing his ground. Only people who are young and insecure will do what he was asking. Rarely do these people help you get more business they usually just take advantage for their benefit. People who truly want you to succeed pay you and pay you well.

"exposure"--how does one survive off of that?

Customer knew the costs going in. And know, in a contract situation, such conversations are almost always recorded and published one way or another for protection. Been in a similar situation... to convert a printer plotter program to long integers so that a bigger bed size could be accommodated. The original code did not belong to the client and while the original programmer didn't want the job, the negotiated price was pitiful. Lots of cussing, threats, nastigrams. Two months later I wrote a 5k$ program for a subsidiary company of the same client, for about $20/hour, no problems. And the program worked like a champ.