The problem is that it also takes away the breath of the customers. Even the rich ones figure they can toss a teenager a $20, and they should be able to fix ANY tech-related problem they're having. Sometimes, even if you do an awesome job, they never call you again because they had to pay what it was worth.

I used to do work 'with' a millionaire 'on the side'. He'd opened up his own shop years previous, but a 'friend's' company ran up a big bill and bankrupted it. "Hey, business is business," said the 'friend', which taught me NEVER to go into business for myself. Seen too many people get shafted. Back on track, I only charged $15 an hour, give or take, because there were some perks to be had as well. One day he didn't agree with the way I was doing something and we had a falling out. Since we were also friends, I'd been doing it more as a favour to him anyway, so no big loss to me. Weeks later, he called up saying one of his millionaire friends, that I'd helped out before, needed something done. Since we were no longer 'speaking', he asked me how much I would charge professionally.

When I said, "$150 for me to show up, and $100 an hour after that," I could hear him choke on the phone. I think he called around to other people and didn't get any joy, because he quickly got me back on 'speaking' terms shortly afterwards...