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Comment by larodi | Hacker News Reader

Volunteering is a very tricky and shady business. If it was not - we’d all be volunteering and getting paid without tax. There’s a reason for some limits in volunteering laws whenever they exist in a country.

I bet the same people running this whole thing are also very well paid techies. Not sure about the volunteers though.

And third, not last, the fact something is run by volunteers does not change it’s nature - it is still a business thing. Some expenses are paid for and eventually all the subcontractors are paid while the volunteers are not. Not fair at all.

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Actually, there aren't really subcontractors. There _is_ a registered company called CCC Veranstaltungs Gmbh (CCC Events Inc.) which more-or-less owns a lot of the equipment (sound stages, lighting, ...) and nominally rents the venues and such, so that if the conference goes bust, there's a legal entity that can go bankrupt instead of individuals, but that's about it.

Food stalls are not hired by the CCCV GmbH, they pay to be there (and in turn get to dictate their prices), video streaming and such is handled by FEM e.V. (a non-profit that specializes in this kinda stuff) and is not paid (except for expenses, I think, but I don't have insights into that part of the finances) and truck drivers and such are actually volunteers.

"The people running this thing" are also volunteers. They do get a bit of money as an exchange for having to take unpaid vacations way in advance of the event for organizing stuff, but it's a far cry from "well paid". It's more of a "here's enough to not go broke on rent and food".

You're missing the point.

The whole thing is purposefully built like that. There is 0 interest in having people on stage that do it for the money. Instead it is about people that deeply care about a topic and want to share knowledge, ideas etc with others.

It is not a regular IT conference. It is not a business thing.

I can see how from the outside you’d think that way. Hacker events are very different to big corporate conferences, and don’t intuitively make sense in a world where almost everything that happens is being done so someone can make a buck.

Everyone involved is a volunteer, or at the very most making significantly less money than they could running events of a similar scale in the real world, and they’re all doing it because there’s not really anything quite like these events outside of them. There’s a distinctly anarchic feeling to them, with a great many things that just organically happen because someone thought it would be fun, and then it got totally out of hand because other people latched on to it as well. The Chaos Post is a prime example of this, a postal service which is effectively a bunch of nerds cosplaying a worldwide postal service - I’ve known of people who addressed postcards to themselves, but at a future event on another continent, and they got delivered intact.

I know very well what a hacker event is and how it unfolds. Been on stage on few, helped as volunteer on some. IMHO - Generally this all manifest in a very similar manner to some communist movement. I’m not saying that it is bad to contribute to some idea, not even saying communism is bad. I’m just saying that there’s certain amount of hypocrisy in this scenario, you can downvote me as much as u want, doesn’t change the fact.

It is one thing to throw a party for 20friends and another to have FOSDEM sized gig. Such events are not presented in open ground in some forest by people shouting loud (been to such also, although for music). So they have cost - for venue, internet, electricity, screens, typically some food, drinks etc. As a presenter I have a cost for flight, accommodation, food, etc.

Someone pays the bill. Not for profit still has bills to pay. If you don’t pay deeds with cash, there’s some other value exchanged.

So why not support these people who contribute? What’s wrong with that, sorry I’m not getting it. Besides students very often participate by moving boxes between rooms, because for jobs that require responsible actions one needs an expert. Being a student I’d rather want to participate in something that actually teaches me something, but at the end the best I can hope for is to get to know some famous folks. But I can also do it as a visitor, right?

The volunteers range from well paid techies to couchsurfing students.

I'm not convinced of your last line. A business is typically maximizing profit, which isn't what's happening here to my knowledge.

I have it on government authority that taxes are voluntary.

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