I don’t disagree that overpaying can be a good strategy, but I question whether it has any bearing on integrity.
I hire someone to paint a fence. We agree on $200 for the job and I pay them $200. We both know that it’s undifferentiated work and I could find a dozen other people who would do it for $200.
Where’s the lack of integrity? Or does it just appear if I know that I actually could afford to pay them $10,000, but chose not to?
We're in a market where people paint fences for $200.
You're building fence painting robot and need someone to teach it how to paint fences by example.
You decide you won't pay the fence painters to teach the robot upfront.
Instead, painters will pay you $20 to even visit the factory.
Then, if a particular painter's fence painting is especially highly rated, you'll pay them a small royalty.
So you send your fence painting robot to compete with fence painters for $20 a fence, passing on a tiny slice of the $20 to the ones who helped teach it.
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We can consider the creation of fence robot and the competition with the existing market just another piece of the steady march of progress, but there's still obvious room to act with more integrity in this situation.
There was no established rate for what fair wages to teach the robot to paint were, and you can't pay $200 because you don't charge $200... but it's also probably not "-$22/month + 1% royalties".
I hire someone to paint a fence. We agree on $200 for the job and I pay them $200. We both know that it’s undifferentiated work and I could find a dozen other people who would do it for $200.
Where’s the lack of integrity? Or does it just appear if I know that I actually could afford to pay them $10,000, but chose not to?