Ask HN: I'm profiting from free labor, mostly from minors. Is this wrong?
Since about 8 years ago, it's been earning revenue mostly through ads, and is supplemented by donations.
My participation -- both on the site and developing new functionality -- has been in a decline over the past several years, and has pretty much come to a halt, mostly due to lack of time and a shift in priorities.
Growing irritated in my lack of participation, some of the staff (moderators, site operators, and other volunteers) approached me, asking that I renew my participation. I was honest with them, and told them that my priorities have changed, and I no longer intend on furthering development of the site. I told them that I am working on other projects that I hope will yield more long-term revenue for me, and that my goal was to someday hire developer(s) to work on ACC, once I was able to sustain that.
Their response was that out of love for the site and the community, they would be willing to help me -- for free. I originally rejected the idea for multiple reasons, but finally came around and agreed.
Now, for about a year, I am overseeing a team of young volunteers developing the site. They use a private repo on Github, and use the ACC forums and tools that I built to manage most of the development process. The team consists roughly of eight developers, two of which are the "team leads" responsible for owning and managing the dev servers and the repos. The whole team is headed by a non-technical project manager.
Again, all of this is volunteer -- nobody makes one penny, except for me.
I do try to see it as giving them experience, and a good opportunity for them to learn and grow in their skills. But part of me still feels like I shouldn't be benefiting from their volunteer time.
Should I be compensating these volunteers, and if so, how would I go about? If not, is there anything else I can/should do to compensate them other than direct payment?
How would you handle this situation?