I agree that the EA marketplace seems particularly inefficient, and agree that this is an argument against my key point above. My guess is that many people are still undervaluing the importance of willingness-to-pay signals, although there are probably some who don’t appreciate the inefficiencies of the market. I’m not really sure what to do with that.
Re: “offering free services helps decrease organisations’ dependence on funders, which I think is pretty desirable for grantees on the current margin.”
I think overdependence on specific funders (or on a small number of funders) can be bad, but my preferred solution is “diversify funding more” not “get free services” — to the extent that the first is an option. (I think I might be missing some reason for why it’s bad for organizations to depend on varied funders, though, if you in fact meant that.) So I think here I’m more sympathetic to approaches like: if you’re considering offering a free service or donating the proceeds, consider asking your potential service recipients whether they’d prefer to just get a donation, or consider donating to a donor lottery or to a smaller fund you appreciate, etc. I tried to outline something like this in point 1 here, but I might have communicated it poorly (or I might be misunderstanding you now).
I agree that the EA marketplace seems particularly inefficient, and agree that this is an argument against my key point above. My guess is that many people are still undervaluing the importance of willingness-to-pay signals, although there are probably some who don’t appreciate the inefficiencies of the market. I’m not really sure what to do with that.
Re: “offering free services helps decrease organisations’ dependence on funders, which I think is pretty desirable for grantees on the current margin.”
I think overdependence on specific funders (or on a small number of funders) can be bad, but my preferred solution is “diversify funding more” not “get free services” — to the extent that the first is an option. (I think I might be missing some reason for why it’s bad for organizations to depend on varied funders, though, if you in fact meant that.) So I think here I’m more sympathetic to approaches like: if you’re considering offering a free service or donating the proceeds, consider asking your potential service recipients whether they’d prefer to just get a donation, or consider donating to a donor lottery or to a smaller fund you appreciate, etc. I tried to outline something like this in point 1 here, but I might have communicated it poorly (or I might be misunderstanding you now).