▲ 13 points

Ask HN: I'm profiting from free labor, mostly from minors. Is this wrong?

by jader201·14y ago·16 comments·view on hn ↗

I founded a website (http://animalcrossingcommunity.com, ACC for short) about 10 years ago, and was the sole developer until recently (I did have a creative designer who was responsible for the original graphics/layout, but he's long been completely uninvolved).

Since about 8 years ago, it's been earning revenue mostly through ads, and is supplemented by donations.

My participation -- both on the site and developing new functionality -- has been in a decline over the past several years, and has pretty much come to a halt, mostly due to lack of time and a shift in priorities.

Growing irritated in my lack of participation, some of the staff (moderators, site operators, and other volunteers) approached me, asking that I renew my participation. I was honest with them, and told them that my priorities have changed, and I no longer intend on furthering development of the site. I told them that I am working on other projects that I hope will yield more long-term revenue for me, and that my goal was to someday hire developer(s) to work on ACC, once I was able to sustain that.

Their response was that out of love for the site and the community, they would be willing to help me -- for free. I originally rejected the idea for multiple reasons, but finally came around and agreed.

Now, for about a year, I am overseeing a team of young volunteers developing the site. They use a private repo on Github, and use the ACC forums and tools that I built to manage most of the development process. The team consists roughly of eight developers, two of which are the "team leads" responsible for owning and managing the dev servers and the repos. The whole team is headed by a non-technical project manager.

Again, all of this is volunteer -- nobody makes one penny, except for me.

I do try to see it as giving them experience, and a good opportunity for them to learn and grow in their skills. But part of me still feels like I shouldn't be benefiting from their volunteer time.

Should I be compensating these volunteers, and if so, how would I go about? If not, is there anything else I can/should do to compensate them other than direct payment?

How would you handle this situation?

16 comments

Invert your perspective on this for a minute. Think of them as the site owners and you as a partner whose IP is being licensed. They need to continue covering the cost of that IP regardless of whether they make money or not.

Furthermore, I agree with others that you will change the dynamic drastically if you throw money into the equation. If you are really uncomfortable wi profiting, reduce the number of ads to give a better end-user experience. Paying the kids will start cool, but will poison the well.

Alternatively, you could create a scholarship fund for volunteers. It is not a guaranteed payment, but recognizes their contributions. Make the criteria a simple "who helped a lot" with "who has a life outside of animal crossing".

1. You're absolutely not doing anything wrong. You did do a lot of work in setting up the site, and you're not deceiving people in any way.

Imagine that your friend is about to make a huge technical mistake that would cost him $10,000. In 5 seconds you advise him otherwise, and he gives you $3,000 as compensation. Would you feel bad about that?

2. Don't bring money into it. There is a huge difference between social norms and monetary norms. The book Predictably Irrational details this with a case study about a day care that started charging a fine when parents were late to pick up their kids, see here for the excerpt: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1923190...

Thanks for the link. That actually raises several good points I'd not thought about.

For example, if I start paying them, would not only their expectations change, but would mine? Would I start feeling they owe me their time, and would they feel obligated to give me their time? I don't want to impose this upon kids that are going to high school or college, at least not without prior experience of imposing this on paid professionals.

I've always made it clear that their school and real life priorities remain above those on ACC. But I'm not sure this mutual understanding would remain if we cross the borders from social norms to market norms.

You're actually profiting from the work you did back 8 years ago. You just built something people want to look after.

Is there any way you could put some of your revenue back into the community?

You may not have the time to spend but you can always start a small fund that the volunteers can manage.

They are obviously doing it because they love it and are not bound to do so. They are free to contribute as much/little as they wish. I'm sure they would be less happy if you decided to close down they entire project.

I think putting some revenue back into the community rewards your volunteers because they get to see the site grow further.

The fact it is still growing without your input is a great thing.

I've actually thought of a few things, but my inexperience in dealing w/ legalities involved with this have prohibited me.

For example, I've thought several times about giveaways and contests, where a console or game would be given away. But when I looked into this, all of the legal paperwork made my head spin.

As far as a separate fund that the team could manage, I'm trying to think of ways they could use this, again without getting into legal issues.

What about asking your volunteers for suggestions as to what would benefit the community. Then you could make those purchases on their behalf.

I can see how you'd want to keep it simple to avoid legal headaches.

It sounds like you're feeling guilty about it, in which case you should probably trust your own conscience rather than the advice of strangers.

If you want to share the profits with them then why not? I will say talk to a lawyer (I hope you've done so already) and make sure you're not violating e.g. minimum wage laws.

Well, it's mostly that I'm uneducated and inexperienced with this, and am looking to a more experienced group (HN community) to provide their thoughts and experiences.

I think your conscience is a great guide if it's something you have prior experiences with, or it's something that's pretty clear. But in cases where you don't have a clue, it's best to seek and draw from the experience of those more experienced.

i think at this stage, i would just hand the site over to them completely, with a written agreement that any money that comes in from the site is to be used exclusively to maintain the site. to enforce that, you keep the hosting and the domain in your name, and get a paypal (or whatever) transfer from them every month for such, and the rest is at their discretion, to use for the benefit of the community.

Personally, I think you are fine. A few of my thoughts:

-You are providing a good experience. Perhaps some of them are viewing this as a good resume/portfolio piece that they can take to an employer or school later.

-Some of them may want it to be volunteer work. In highschool, I volunteered time to code a site for a local church, since I needed volunteer hours to get into National Honor's Society. I preferred coding over raking leaves, so it was an ideal arrangement.

-I don't think you are exploiting them. It is clearly a volunteer arrangement. And it sounds like they volunteered so that they could keep the site running/functional.

-If you still feel bad about it, pay them. I'm sure they won't mind. Make it a learning experience and go through salary/contract negotiations or something.

i don't think you are doing anything wrong. as others mentioned, you put in a lot of effort and developed something that people actually want to use and contribute to.

from a conscious perspective, i see how you could feel guilty and if i were in your shoes, i would probably just send them some money through paypal as a token of appreciation. don't need to get any lawyers invovled for min. wage etc. theya re doing volunteer work for you and you are giving them a "bonus" as a token of appreciation.

i'm sure they will be happy with anything since their expectation is to receive nothing!

good luck

>"Since about 8 years ago, it's been earning revenue mostly through ads, and is supplemented by donations."

Are you profiting from donations?

The revenue from ads and donations go into one pot, and that is used to fund the hosting and other costs.

But if the question is whether the donations themselves would cover all expenses and thus yield net income (profit), then the answer would be no.

Why do you ask?

Well, the headline implies that you are profiting.

If you are not taking money out for yourself and only covering legitimate expenses, then you are not profiting in a sense which is relevant to unpaid labor or youth volunteering.

On the other hand, if you are paying yourself something based on the fact that you own the website, then you are profiting and calling the contributions "donations" is misleading, IMO.

I do profit, by your definition, but I'm only able to because of the ads. Donations alone currently do not cover the expenses.

Give a little back!!