The 30K thing was related to a post on here a few days back where an author claimed that they had their pick of "30K / week" engagements. As an interesting contrast with your policy, they claimed that they kept their rates hidden, thus allowing them to magically and endlessly ramp it up.

In any case, I've long come to learn in the freelance industry that the more people talk about their success (which can be "so many clients I turn them away", or "I am now charging 50K+"), the more unlikely that success actually is. e.g. the guy who puts "published author" at the top of his blog likely has an Amazon Digital Delivery PDF book. The guy who talks about "top clients" had someone from Apple visit their blog once. And so on.

The more bombastic about success someone is, the more incredible the claims, the more likely they're struggling for relevance, using the escalating accomplishments to create it. Again, this has been my experience in the industry, where when you look behind the curtain you find Lenny asking you not to tell anyone how he lives.

In no way am I saying that about you, but just in general HN has been awash in "so much success I have to wear shades....now would you like to buy some tupperware?" type posts (I'm not being facetious with the tupperware thing -- it's people claiming boundless success, and then pitching something so petty that it puts it all in stark contrast), and I have to think it does a massive disservice to most of the readership, putting in their notice on this notion that there are endless lines of clients throwing money around for vague needs.