Alice, I have just one point regarding the standard dollar pricing here. A dollar is a dollar in the US (or an Euro in Europe) but the going exchange rate in Indian Rupees is just above 71 per USD. That makes a $10 per hour rate equal to about 750 per hour including Forex conversion charges. And then there are many other countries where the exchange rate is even steeper.

To put that in perspective, a slightly old per capita nominal anual income for India was around $1700, while the same figure on purchasing power parity was about $5300. This means that (a) average incomes are low and (b) cost of living is one third or lower compared to the US. On that scale INR 750 can feed an average family for about three days, considering the typical Indian diet.

Of course, income disparity is also very sharp here, so on the lower end of the scale those three days may well be five, while on the high end it can easily be less than one meal for a single person. The point is, what would one choose? To eat (as an individual) for a week or take a one hour class?

And yes, your other points make sense. An initial low price followed by raising it as one becomes more popular and better known is a good strategy. What I said above is the fact that the population in the developed world is really small compared to the developing world. As an example, the US is three times bigger than India but has 25% the population. The customers are where the population is.

My discussion today was prompted by the multiple postings related to the marketing teacher services (probably best not to mention individuals by name).

I understand why some teachers or tutors choose to advertise their services.

After all, some of them truly depend on the income generated by their work on italki.

However, there would be a serious problem if every teacher and tutor were to market their services in the Discussion section.

For example, there would be no room left for members to seek language exchange partners... :)

Students are smart, but tutors are too (or at least, they should be). Alice, surely you’re not claiming you failed to understand that all those students were looking for free language *exchange*? They specifically mentioned they were looking for fellow language learners who were interested in their native languages — that is what they were offering. Everyone understood, which is why your cut-and-paste spam got so many down-votes. (Or maybe everyone else in the universe is wrong except you.) You wisely erased your most objectionable comments, and now, months later, when all those threads are deeply buried, you come onto a new discussion and complain about supposed “unfair” treatment. Anyhow, as I said, apparently you’re free to do whatever you want, just don’t say I didn’t try to help you to avoid making a bad impression.

Alice:

Here’s an example of a language learner looking for language exchange, where apparently misunderstood at first, but then wisely took my advice before you could get any negative reaction:

As far as I know, there is no policy against such posts based on content, as long as they are not spammy. One example of spam tactics is cutting and pasting the same message onto numerous unrelated or marginally related discussions.

Alice: In case you’ve forgotten or somehow failed to understand, the reason your posts got so many more downvotes than usual is because they were so much more objectionable. In case you’ve forgotten, you had the habit of commenting on posts by community members who were clearly and explicitly looking for free language exchange. You left the same exact cut-and-paste message volunteering to “help” on dozens of such threads, forgetting to mention that you charge for your services. Whether or not it's against the rules to bait and switch innocent students is debatable, but you certainly should’t have expected to make a favorable impression.

Interesting. I recall two books that I read long ago. Alvin Toffler's <em>The Third Wave</em> and Thomas Friedman's <em>The World is Flat</em>. Both were about trying to understand the times that we are in and what was coming.

Among other things, they said that salaried jobs would shrink rapidly and freelancers will predominate. Check. They also said that both the demand and supply of knowledge shall become commodities. Check.

A teacher can no longer be a simple content provider like before. Content is now just a commodity, it abounds all over the net. They have to be guides and motivators, and few are equal to those roles.

The student has another problem. Earlier, knowing something added definite value but now that's not so much the case. There is no guarantee any longer that learning anything will fetch an assured livelihood.

As they say, the machines aren't coming. They are here already, performing far better at most jobs than even the most intelligent and learned human ever can. Examples? Not the transactional tasks, those were cracked ages ago. Medicine, engineering, teaching, legal, investment banking, design.

Just a matter of time before we all become redundant and survive on Universal Basic Income and whatever freelancing we can still manage.