Dave Winer put out a complaint I see a lot - his happens to be about the fees paid to some speakers, but I've seen other people make the same one about sports figures (etc):
I'd love to see a breakdown of the speeches. Who pays $1 million for an after-dinner speaker and why? Maybe I'm missing something, but something doesn't sound right here.
Commonly, you'll se this mixed with something like "policemen don't get paid that well, and they do a much more important job". Here's the thing though: a thing (object or service) is worth what people will pay for it. Period. There's no such thing as a "fair" price - it simply doesn't exist.
You need to drill the idea of "fair" prices out of your head, because it's a nonsensical one. Use this an example: you want to sell your house. The local government has assessed its value as $300,000. You offer it at $350,000. Are you cheating? Now, someone comes by and makes an offer of $300,000 - and then someone else comes by and offers $360,000. Do you take the lower offer, on the assumption that the "fair" price is what the house was assessed at?
When someone starts going on about how prices should be fair, here's my advice: hold on to your wallet, because "fair" is rarely cheap.
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