I've just taken a quick look at the community teacher's list hoping to find a teacher at the price around $10 per hour. What I found was that the price for people without any kind of certificate ranges dramatically from $6 to $15 per hour.
Why is that? What makes people think that they are better or worse than the others, especially when they don't have any particular degree in teaching?
I think you're making the wrong assumption here. I think there are many reasons why people set their price at a certain amount and it's usually for reasons besides how good they think they are.
Some people who are new to teaching or just this platform may initially offer a low price to attract new students, get some good feedback and then ultimately up their price.
You also need to factor in that the teachers come from all different countries and some simply don't want to work for less than a certain rate, whereas in other countries that rate would be fine.
Additionally, people may have limited time to teach so if there is a certain demand for their service, may increase their price to only work the number of hours they want while earning maximum income.
As for your last point, I don't think having a degree in teaching necessarily makes you a better teacher.
In the United States, the minimum wage (Federal) is $7.25 per hour, with quite a few states having higher minimums. Most healthy, educated people would not have any difficulty finding at least a part-time job that pays better than what they would charge as tutors on italki. My impression is that most of the tutors on italki from the U.S. are doing this as a hobby, not as a primary source of income.
I think tutors do set their prices based on how much they enjoy doing it and how many hours they want. The fees provide a little extra money and compensate for the inconvenience of scheduling, but are probably not nearly as important as other personal things like a desire to serve, a desire to talk to other people, a desire to get experience, etc. I do think some tutors will work very cheap (in U.S. terms) for the experience (for example the college students who do have dreams of a teaching or traveling related career). I myself, have wondered if I would like to tutor or teach after I am retired from my current career, which would be time that I would not really need the money but may not want to offer my services for free because of the different attitude people tend to have when they get something for free.
Thanks, Matt. I've completely forgotten to mention that I was looking only at the teachers who are from the US, most of them had already had at minimum 50 completed lessons, so I wouldn't think that attracting new students was the case.
The only thing that can matter is the fact that some people just have limited time for teaching and therefore raise their prices over the roof. Hm, that's an interesting strategy, that is. Perhaps I should go to work on Monday and say to my boss something like "Hey, from now on I will work for 3 hours a day, but my hourly rate will have to be multiplied accordingly".
I hope that you guys were able to understand my broken English.
