Ideally someone would value your creativity or recognize the value in paying you enough to do a task that has value to them while also giving you time and space to work on the things which are valuable to you.
We can all be paid more and work less and things will get better. Now, making people actually understand that is an entirely different beast.
I can sympathize with your friend, I made digital art for a while and distribute it for free still to this day without any license whatsoever. Because I love to make art. I write with no expectation that I will get a book deal, that someone will pay to read it, or that I can convert it to some form of sellable text.
We can all be paid more and work less and things will get better. Now, making people actually understand that is an entirely different beast.
I can sympathize with your friend, I made digital art for a while and distribute it for free still to this day without any license whatsoever. Because I love to make art. I write with no expectation that I will get a book deal, that someone will pay to read it, or that I can convert it to some form of sellable text.
Because I love to write.
The more I’m on Earth the less I like it here.