|
Click to recommend this page:
| |
|
There's an ongoing trend in the photo industry that preaches that
photographers should stick together, and not take low-fee jobs (or
work for free), because such actions bring down the collective value
of the photo industry and encourage clients to expect more for less.
|
|
This very idea is pleasing to believe, and always goes over well
with pro photographers, but it runs counter to many proven economic
principles. One of the pinnacle truisms of economics is called The
Prisoner's Dilemma, which not only shows that such cooperation
never helps, but it actually harms those who cooperate more than those
who don't. This famous experiment demonstrates the basic principle:
|
|
You and a friend have robbed a bank, but the police catch you.
You and your friend agree that the best thing to do is not confess
anything. That is, by cooperating, you can each assure that you will
both be protected. But, the twist is that the police place you into
separate cells, and interview you separately:
|
|
"If one of you testifies against the other, and the other remains silent,
the betrayer goes free, and the other gets 10 years in prison. If you
both stay silent, we can't convict you on the bigger sentence, but we
can get you on lesser charges, giving you six months in jail. If you
both betray each other, then you both serve two years."
|
|
Each of you has two options: stay quiet, resulting in a lighter
sentence for each of you. Or, defect from the pact. The table below
illustrates your options:
|
| Prisoner B Stays Silent | Prisoner B Betrays | | Prisoner
A Stays Silent | Each serves six months | Prisoner
A serves ten years
Prisoner B goes free | | Prisoner A Betrays | Prisoner A goes free
Prisoner B serves ten years | Each serves two years |
|
|
Because you're in separate cells, you have no idea what your friend is
going to do. So when the police interview you, you're not quite sure
whether you should stick to your agreement, or if you should betray your
accomplice. Logically speaking, you have a lot to lose if the other guy
betrays you, and you have far less to lose if you are the betrayer.
Of course, the other guy is thinking the same thing. In short, rational,
self-interest plays into each of your decisions, and most people will
choose to betray.
|
|
Each of the players in this scenario represent those in any real-world
scenario. For photographers, consider the pact where you both agree not
to discount your photos below $25. But one day, a client that tells you,
"I would love to license that photo from you. I will offer $10 because
your competition gave me that price for his photo." Despite your
agreement not to discount, you wonder: Is he sticking to his pledge? Or
is he undercutting you to get the business? How do you even know that
the other photographer is even in the game? You even rationalize that
calling him won't help—if he is betraying you, he might even deny
that he was ever called! What do you? Whom do you trust?
|
|
The reality is that you just can't trust people to stick to their
agreement once a group of "collaborators" exceeds even a few individuals.
When you need to pay your mortgage, or put food on the table, you will
undercut the other guy. And frankly, even if you don't need to, the
fear that the other guy will betray you means that you will, just to
avoid losing the business. Statistically speaking, this is assured.
|
|
This experiment illustrates the most fundamental cornerstones of economic
theory and has been tested in many different contexts, conditions, and
demographics. It was originally conceived in 1950 by Merrill Flood and
Melvin Dresher working at the RAND corporation, and became the basis
from which John Forbes Nash derived his famed "Nash Equilibrium",
which earned him a Nobel Prize for Economics. It has since served as
the foundation for most businesses, governments, social policies, and
many other aspects of everyday life because it reflects innate human
decision-making. So long as there is no interfering body, policing of
behaviors, enforcement of compliance, or any other factor to deter this
natural human instinct, it is "natural" to serve one's own interests,
and also to protect against harm from others by "betraying" them first.
|
|
If this is the case, why doesn't society collapse? Because we have an
intricate and complex system of checks and balances. We have laws that
keep people from stealing or harming each other, police to enforce them,
social stigmas, and religious dogma, just to name a few. There's also the
fact that society isn't necessarily a zero-sum game: people don't kill
each other unless there's some gain in it. In fact, there's a great deal
of self-protection in maintaining order and keeping peace.
|
|
What does this have to do with the photography business? Because
there are more photographers than there is a demand for them. Therefore,
it's a buyer's market: people will offer less and less, and there will
always be photographers that will take it. Attempting to get
photographers to "cooperate" is literally impossible. In fact, those who
do cooperate will find themselves harmed worse, leaving an even greater
proportion of those remaining unwilling to cooperate.
|
|
Unless there is a plausible, accepted, and recognized enforcement
of compliance—such as how laws protect worker's unions from both
defectors within the union, and from companies to hire people outside
ethe union—it is literally impossible to effect change through
mass cooperation. In fact, this is why union laws were created.
|
|
So why don't photographers form a union, or why doesn't the government
set up some sort of pricing protection policy? The first answer is that
photographers did have a union, but it was broken up in the 1970s
for restraint of trade, which was triggered by two events: buyers
were harmed because there was no competition in pricing. They had to
buy photos only from union members, who, by law, were required to sell
their photos at a set price. Secondly, photographers complained that
they couldn't work because the union wouldn't let them in. So, too many
people weren't working. A photographer's union caused far more harm
than good.
|
|
As for the government setting up pricing protection, that's not its
role or responsibility in society. It has never done such a thing,
nor would anyone ever accept it.
|
|
Then there are those who feel that you just need most photographers
to cooperate. But the Prison's Dilemma game has proven that the core,
self-interest behavior has not only been established in small groups of
people, but it has been shown that the greater the number of players, a
smaller and smaller ratio of defectors is necessary to dilute the effects
of the group. In any business model, whether it's a sole photographer, or
a larger agency selling the work of thousands, this is this fundamental
principle that instantly discounts all arguments made by photography
interest groups that "sticking together" works. (That photo interest
groups and educational systems continue to advocate this approach does
more harm to those in the photo industry than anything else.)
|
|
In summary, photographers of today cannot possibly expect to achieve
anything by attempting to cooperate with one another. Doing so will only
cause more harm to those who try. Making money in photography is about
developing a career, not by stringing together one paid gig after another.
If you develop yourself as a professional, money comes, and you're paid
on many qualities and skills well beyond "photography." If someone isn't
willing to pay you more than the competition, you're either not worth it,
or the gig is too simplistic to expect it. Real success is having
a skill or quality that cannot be provided by the lowest bidder.
|
Click to recommend this page:
|
|
