I see it as paying for a shortcut. Very little information is actually behind a paywall. You could go the long way and do your own research, make lists to keep track of, follow up regularly, etc or you can pay for someone else who has done that or is willing to do that and get your results faster, and hopefully they are correct. As with anything you should always be able to double check the work you are paying for or I wouldnt pay that person a second time if the result was wrong, or at bare minimum be highly skeptical.
I dont see why people would be upset at other charging for advice or a service, there is tons of information out there but it takes a lot of time to sift through and recognize what is applicable or not.
This might be a hot take, but collectors are some of the most confidently wrong people Iāve ever met. So much confidence with such little evidence.
For anyone looking to better themselves in any area of their life (collecting included), you have to do the hard work. There is no single person who will have all of the answers, and experiential learning goes a long way (i.e., you often have to do it to learn it).
I guess itās pretty unanimous. Ironic since basically this is a āfree adviceā forum but I think the primary difference is that a community has much larger breadth of knowledge and there are many of us. It makes answering questions pretty trivial. Whereas if you are getting like 3+ messages a day directly it just canāt scale the same way.
Anyway, thereās a different point I want to make. Iām much more ok with drama threads on this site primarily because of how easy it is to contol the content you see. For example, we could require the #drama tag on certain threads. You can go and mute the entire tag if thatās not content you want to see!
Me: writing and erasing 3 messages worth of post because the issue feels so incredibly nuanced and ethics based. Is anyone being taken advantage of, or can an advisor actually provide valuable information that you can put a dollar amount to?
Pretty much. Opossum usually creates content in defense of the little guy, as well as āinvestigativeā videos. There is merit to what he does, but obviously this issue in particular is a little more nuanced as you say.
i dont think this nuanced at all. someone charging for their experience is their choice. itās their knowledge and experience and if you donāt want to pay for it then dont. but whining because someone else does is childish
Iāve given extensive advice in exchange for percentages before. If anyone should feel taken advantage of it was me not him, but heās a close friend and I was willing to do it for the price agreed upon.
Opossum Bud is easily the biggest clown in the PokeTuber ācommunity.ā Go and look at his channel. I would say more than half of his videos (probably around 70-75 percent) are him attacking other content creators, and his comment section is full of a bunch of whiny entitled babies.
And the funny thing is, he actually has talent. He could be a really good content creator if he would just stop the negative BS and actually, you know, create original content.
Iāve noticed that too. He has the charisma and cadence for youtube but most of the videos Iāve seen from him is outrage over some nontroversy.
Honestly that content really works well and I always thought it was (and still is) fertile ground for people who want to do youtube. I think he will be really successful. Unfortunately it comes at the cost of amplifying grevience and division so I hope he uses the power for good
Not watching the video but Iāve seen some discussion around this on IG recently.
I donāt necessarily think paid advice is shocking. If I was looking to set up a business and pick someoneās brain (thatās been extremely successful in the hobby) then Iād have no problem paying. It would be invaluable to cut out the hours of research to have someone answer your questions in 30secs (I mean things like setting up vendor accounts, approaches to selling certain product, that kind of thing).
I do however think that people love to overstate the difficulty in finding out information when it comes to things such as pricing around cards (graded & raw). With all the active market places, it literally takes 30 secs to look at price history on any card you can think of maybe outside of 1 or 2. If you canāt make a decision on whether something is worth buying after looking at hard data, you shouldnāt be doing it in the first place.
The other problem I have is seeing people charge people money for āconsultingā but actively participate and gain information for free from spaces such as E4 forums/discord or other community discords. Thereās times that Iāve seen āconsultantsā come in E4 discord, ask detailed questions about obscure/rare cards and they get the information for free. Thatās how the community should be, but its shitty behaviour to be charging people money for advice when youāre getting it for free from an open community.
In general, if anyone is thinking of paying someone for advice or to answer a question around cards - donāt. There will be someone helpful and knowledgeable enough in E4 discord/forums to help you for free. Just stay active and help someone in return when they ask a question that you know the answer to. Pass the favor along. Thatās how we keep the hobby positive and growing instead of feeding shitty people who think they are above helping people in the community (that they gained their knowledge from at $0 cost).
Since I am not a guy, I am not asked for an opinion. But I do have one.
I have 22 years experience in playing/teaching the TCG (and of course collecting)
I never charged anybody money for advice, it was always free.
BUT
last year I stopped giving advice.
Why I did, there were to many people showing up in my store asking me to look through their binder to check if they had real cards.
I always did, but those same people bought those cards on fleemarkets and never spend a penny in my store.
Should I spend time to answer them? Not anymore.
I donāt charge money for my time, I simply look quick and tell them yes there are fake cards in there and websites like Ebay and Cardmarket you can find the value.
the same for TCG/Playing. If I run a tournament/event geared towards playing the game I will always do my best to answer any question during that event. Helping to improve a deck or translate cards.
But when Iām āworkingā in the shop I donāt give time anymore to that.
I donāt care if somebody is asking money for time/knowledge. However I do have my doubts about the āknowledgeā from people who are only around 2-3 years (sorry).
In the professional world, consultation from anyone/any company worth their salt, is a minimum low 5 figures just to get them on site or on the phone for an extended period of time. Yeah I guess you can ājust google itā but youād be fired on the spot and laughed out the door if you legitimately said that in a meeting.
Didnāt watch the video, but if someone thinks their experience and advice is worth something, they should feel free to charge for it. And if the buyer comes to the conclusion that said personās advice or insight is worth the price theyāre charging, I donāt see where the issue is (as long as neither party is being wronged or blatantly scammed). Iām not in consulting, but from what I understand, this transaction is essentially what the whole industry is based on. Even if there may be others more qualified or that could give better advice, that doesnāt mean any particular individial shouldnāt charge for information or that the client is necessarily being swindled. As long as both parties are fully informed, it was a transaction that was mutually agreed upon. And I feel that people not participating in that transaction can opine, but it should be taken with a grain of salt.
That said, I do think that people who find financial success in the short term, when the winds are favorable, may not necessarily be the best to seek out information from. Iām not saying all of them are not worth their salt, but in 2020/2021, there sure were a lot of new Poketubers dispensing investing advice when their track record consisted of just recently buying some booster boxes to sit on.
I think itās a bit much to compare Pokemon YouTubers with doctors and lawyers.
Perhaps itās because Iām not involved with any Pokemon business or high end cards/grading etc. but I donāt see why any of the information is worth paying for. The difference is that all those jobs youāve listed are giving you advice for a problem you have, this is giving āadviceā to people who want to be you. There is no problem.
It boils down to people attempting to get rich quick. Is sitting on one case of booster boxes for 10 years considered quick or rich? The more people that attempt to replicate what someone has done will only have the effect of everyone āmakingā less. The most āsuccessfulā people are those who were collectors first.
I suppose I donāt actually have that much of a problem with people charging others, because the problem lies with those who are seeking out āadviceā being pretty pathetic to begin with. Iām sure the same exists in every collectible too. Probably the same people going from one hobby to another. Get off social media, get educated on how society is structured and then knowing that, decide what you want to do with your life from there.
I think a lot of people are forgetting the currency that we all pay with no matter our age, wealth, or experience: time.
There are tons of things in life that people are willing to pay for because it saves them time. Think of UberEats/DoorDash/etc. People are willing to pay for someone else to pick up their groceries because their time is more valuable. If you make $100 an hour, itās worth it to gain that hour back by paying someone $15 to get your groceries for an hour while you work and net profit $85. Getting groceries is FREE, it doesnāt cost you anything to walk in the door.
Expecting everything in the world to be free just because you could do it if you āhad more timeā is not reality
And a lot of the time it isnāt something people could ājust doā even if they had more time because people love to underestimate any and all effort and skill whenever it suits them. Information gathering from anywhere (including the internet) can be a tedious, meticulous, esoteric process and a whole host of people donāt have the first clue about where to begin even if they had the time which they donāt have and never will. The higher up the ladder you go, the more this is respected.
