I am one of those who believes one should charge for what you do. Of course, the furry fandom wants to be the special child where "commercial interests" are not welcome. The thing is, I've always charged for my time, however there is a special case where I contribute to FOSS (and in particular GNU Linux). That is what I like to refer to as "community work" or "giving back to all those smart people online who taught me so much".
These notions do not sit well with most furries who expect everything to be a free handout. The only things they're prepared to pay for is admission to a con, and for art (the latter seems to be a bit of a hot potato too).
However, closer to this, what basically seems to be the case here is marketing using people in their situational position i.e. furries- I guess its no different to using athelete x or popstar y as the image on the ad. I for one, do not have a problem with that. The bigger problem is the fact that there's a lot of crap attached to this- specifically sexual deviance and the stereotypes. Most people out there associate furries with the CSI episode, and this was made very evident this past weekend when I had a get-together at my home. The elephant in the room was present, and explained to my non-furry friends by the furries who were present. While I commend that, unfortunately, this fandom is frequently used as a cover for sexual fetish and illegal sexual acts. When people stop doing that, perhaps then, perceptions can start to change. But I don't think it ever will.
I am one of those who believes one should charge for what you do. Of course, the furry fandom wants to be the special child where "commercial interests" are not welcome. The thing is, I've always charged for my time, however there is a special case where I contribute to FOSS (and in particular GNU Linux). That is what I like to refer to as "community work" or "giving back to all those smart people online who taught me so much".
These notions do not sit well with most furries who expect everything to be a free handout. The only things they're prepared to pay for is admission to a con, and for art (the latter seems to be a bit of a hot potato too).
However, closer to this, what basically seems to be the case here is marketing using people in their situational position i.e. furries- I guess its no different to using athelete x or popstar y as the image on the ad. I for one, do not have a problem with that. The bigger problem is the fact that there's a lot of crap attached to this- specifically sexual deviance and the stereotypes. Most people out there associate furries with the CSI episode, and this was made very evident this past weekend when I had a get-together at my home. The elephant in the room was present, and explained to my non-furry friends by the furries who were present. While I commend that, unfortunately, this fandom is frequently used as a cover for sexual fetish and illegal sexual acts. When people stop doing that, perhaps then, perceptions can start to change. But I don't think it ever will.