When I notice people pushing back on hourly rates, I think of a story a friend told me about an expert locksmith. He could unlock a door in under 30 seconds, but he often fiddled around a bit so his customers would feel better about having spent $200. He was very good, but if he made it look too easy, they would complain or give him a bad review. I try to never begrudge someone that knows how to add value and set a marketable price. If you're consistent, reliable and add value, they deserve it!
I'm not saying it's easy but $200 is a lot. Hypothetically purely based on opportunity costs, the AI freelancer could afford spending an hour trying to unlock his own door, someone like me I could spend like 6 hours buy a lockpick and watch a YouTube tutorial, or maybe easier to spend the next hour looking for a cheaper locksmith!
That is only possible because you didn't put a price tag on your own time.
Similarly, a company's CEO could say "Hey, I could simply go to university myself and learn everything about NLP and solve my NLP problem and save 10.000$ for this contractor! Yay!"
That's only scalable up to a certain point, and that point is usually reached when you realize that you need employees.
