What Makes Money in the Non-Standard Industry?

The key difference between "non-standard" blue-collar work and traditional assembly-line labor is that the latter sells labor itself, while the former sells a solution. They might just clean the debris from your air conditioner vent. If priced strictly by labor, a 50-yuan service fee plus 50 yuan for 10 minutes of work—totaling 100 yuan—would be reasonable. But the problem is that knowing to clean the vent in the first place—that solution alone is worth 400 yuan. So charging you 500 yuan is actually realistic. In practice, however, it's normal, yet also abnormal, that they might charge you 1,000 or 1,500 yuan. Why is that? Because your AC isn't cooling right now, and it's the dog days of summer. Buying a new unit would cost thousands, and it wouldn't be installed on the same day anyway. Staying at a hotel would also cost money. Can you afford to wait? Or can you endure the heat for a few more hours? Meanwhile, you scramble to find a replacement technician—who might kindly offer to do the job for 500 yuan, or might quote you 1,500 yuan instead. The jump from 500 to 1,500 yuan is entirely a game of negotiation. In other words, that extra 1,000 yuan they earn isn't payment for the solution—it's the price of your urgency to need it.

You can refuse their service, you can switch providers, but no matter how many times you flip-flop, your total cost always consists of three components:

Labor price + Solution price + The negotiation price based on how urgently you need that solution.