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Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

people still do this? this is really still a thing? i thought we all agreed to stop doing this years ago.

doctors, lawyers, accountants, plumbers, electricians, mechanics have figured this out, i have faith that we can too. it's really not difficult.

please stop doing free tech work for people. there is something in the human condition which will cause them to be

1. ungrateful and upset with the results of your help

2. ironically, ask for more free work

3. blame you for their own fuckups

4. have set expectations that you'll do more of it on demand.

worst of all, you cheapen the entire concept of technology work. be the change you want to see in the world.

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I trade my tech knowledge for knowledge with other things. For example, my girlfriend's dad knows relatively little about computers, but he knows an enormous amount about home improvement and car maintenance. I fix his occasional computer issues, he can walk me through anything that happens to my poor beat-up Civic.

This applies to pretty much everything - friends help friends with stuff. But there's a pretty clear tit-for-tat exchange going on. If I have a problem, I expect you to give me advice, too. So, in this way, I treat tech knowledge as being exactly the same as electrician knowledge, mechanical knowledge, and medical knowledge. If you want access to my knowledge, you have to give me access to your knowledge (and to your own network if you don't have any).

I haven't had the problem with poor people, or family. I do tell them, there's no guarantee, and it's most likely something you did, and you should learn more about computing before you even think about opening up the command line, or even use the time machine."

I have had wealthy individuals act like they are doing me a favor because I need to find the virus/malware one of their clones dowloaded from some porn site. I always give them a quote. They send me home, and then the wife calls after hubby gets to the permently blue screen, or the wheel never stops spinning.

Anecdotally speaking, in the past month or so I've seen people ask doctor friends about their maladies, lawyers asked to look at contracts and accountants asked about mortgages - all off the clock and without pay. It's not just a tech thing.

Stopped doing websites for friends and loved ones a long time ago.

Feature creep is even more of an issue when the value of your time is not quantified in some way for the client.

Yup. Buddy deals are the best way to waste your time, lose money and damage relationships.

I actually kinda wish I did tech support for my grandmother. She's a nurse and I occasionally call her for things. However, my father used to be a sysadmin and seems to have things set up such that she doesn't need help with anything.

I don't know if it still "a thing" or not, but I try to help friends and such who may be going thru rough times or whatever, and I enjoy fixing broken things that people have given up on.

Maybe it reminds me of myself and the help I've received after people gave up on me.

But like I said, the fallout of it often reminds me of the parent post.

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