It’s just a symbolic gesture of “we think this person is cool, and we think that you should choose whether to go to our event partly based on whether you also think this person is cool”.
My guess is that “special guest” status meant more than that. Special guests likely received a free ticket, worth $500.
It’s also possible that special guests might have gotten travel or lodging subsidies in one form or another (e.g. free lodging at Lightcone). This is a guess, I don’t know how common it is in general for billed guests at conferences to fund their own lodging and travel fully, but it seems possible.
If that’s the case, it strengthens your point. It’s very reasonable to not pay for someone who is rude and unnecessarily seeks out controversy to attend your conference.
(I’m generally not a fan of this much meta, but I consider the fact that this was strong downvoted by someone to be egregious. Most of the comment is reasonable speculation that turned out to be right, and the last sentence is a totally normal opinion to have, which might justify a disagree vote at worst.)
My guess is that “special guest” status meant more than that. Special guests likely received a free ticket, worth $500.
It’s also possible that special guests might have gotten travel or lodging subsidies in one form or another (e.g. free lodging at Lightcone). This is a guess, I don’t know how common it is in general for billed guests at conferences to fund their own lodging and travel fully, but it seems possible.
If that’s the case, it strengthens your point. It’s very reasonable to not pay for someone who is rude and unnecessarily seeks out controversy to attend your conference.
(I’m generally not a fan of this much meta, but I consider the fact that this was strong downvoted by someone to be egregious. Most of the comment is reasonable speculation that turned out to be right, and the last sentence is a totally normal opinion to have, which might justify a disagree vote at worst.)