# Pay WordCamp organizers and speakers > [!quote] > "A free ticket doesn't pay for accommodation… it doesn't compensate for the months and hundreds of hours spent. WordPress contributors get sponsored by companies every day… Nobody argues that these activities suddenly become less valuable because money is involved." A direct argument that the volunteer-run conference model extracts months of unpaid skilled labor, that a free ticket isn't compensation, and that payment precedents already exist in WordPress — so paying organizers/speakers doesn't taint the community. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Perm · WordCamp organizers should be paid, not voluntold]] — turns the source's compensation case into a direct governance prescription - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Curated Mastery Conferences Serve Practitioners That Volume Conferences Cannot]] — "pay the speakers" as the values signal; this is the organizer-side case - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Coerced Contribution Kills the Commons]] — unpaid expert labor as a hidden tax on the commons - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Stewardship Invests in Contributor Capacity Not Just Cash]] — paying contributors as investment, not corruption - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Maintenance Is Most of the Work but Gets No Prestige]] — the invisible-labor pattern, applied to event organizing - [[3. Resources/MOCs/DevRel MOC]] — applies-in: the MOC lists this note under Synthesis additions (2026-06-12). ## Source - [Reader: It's Time to Pay WordCamp Organizers and Speakers (Checkout Summit)](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kty51nptpjdza06sy3nd84bw) *(vault source note pending next Readwise sync)*