Okay, so, help me out here ... how does someone rip something off by asking for what they believe their work is worth? Does the regular definition of a scam even apply here?

I come to this as a community volunteer and as an artist in the ACTUAL world, where occasionally I get to write for grants based on work done and work to be done in the future. It does sometimes happen that a grant comes through based on the merit of work you have already done -- you prove you have done the kind of work the organization is interested in, and they cover your expenses because they recognize the value you have already provided and thus enable you to continue to provide to the community.

The distributions being asked for from the Hive fund seem to be in a similar class of things -- people receiving from the fund are presenting the value of their work and asking for what they want in their proposal. Since this does sometimes happen "retroactively" in the ACTUAL world of grants and stipends (sometimes called "sustaining" grants or something like), I don't see how it can be classified as a scam and a ripoff here on Hive...

If the amount is a problem, there are three things to look at here. Do we have the right to tell people how to value their work, and if so, based on what accepted criteria? Generally speaking, one would be laughed at and accused of rank jealousy if trying to get between grant-makers and grantees in this way, even though grant-makers generally are 501c3s and are thus public benefit corporations. They belong to the national community ... and so we all fund them in a sense. Yet criteria are left to the grant-makers.

The second item: at what point does money paid become a robbery of the community? $30K? $20K? $10K? Who says? Again, there is a strong whiff of sour grapes here ... most of us do not have the total set of skills and connections necessary to be in line for a $30K grant, and that can make us feel overlooked and underappreciated for what we are able to do and have done. But it is always dangerous to conflate our personal feelings with a problem for an entire community. Have we been robbed? We have all contributed in six weeks to something that we have equal access to that has great and recognized value. Some people are more equipped to ask for and potentially receive greater personal benefit than others ... but that is not unlike actual life, and that is not necessarily a diminishing of anyone else or the community.

Third and last item: If the system for making proposals is open to everyone, how it is unfair for people who make proposals to ask for what they want? Just because not all of us are equipped today to have the set of skills and connections to make a $30K ask and expect to receive it, does that mean those that do should be kept from having the right to ask when the same open door is in front of all of us? Put another way: if I have assumed I never will be in a position to do such an ask although the door is wide open, does that give me the right to handicap everybody else as I have handicapped myself in my own thinking? YET AGAIN: there is a strong whiff of sour grapes and limiting thinking around this idea.