Comment by gk1

As I said somewhere in that thread, I only ever encounter arguments against value-based billing from other contractors/consultants, and not companies. There's probably a psychological topic there to explore but I won't go there. I have nothing to gain by convincing other contractors/consultants, except the feeling that I helped someone escape the hell that is hourly billing.

Yes, it helps to be offering some unique value that can't just be found on Upwork (see excellent posts on this [1] and [2]), but you don't need to be in the 99th percentile to do value-based billing.

I don't know much about the author but they're probably in that 99% whose work you think is commoditized (or at an equilibrium). Clearly this is not true, since they were paid $21k for work that could've been done by a large portion of that 99%.

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

[2] https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/04/04/the-strategic-independen...