There is an uncomfortable truth that lurks beneath many business interactions, not every bad review is really about the service. Sometimes it is about status, self-worth, and the sting of feeling left out.
Let us start with a scenario. A web designer chats to a small business owner. The owner’s website is outdated, slow, and doing nothing to help the business grow. The designer is honest, says it needs a rebuild, and quotes £2,500, a fair price for quality, professional work.
But the business owner cannot afford it. Rather than admitting that, they react defensively. The story they tell others is not, “I could not pay,” it is, “What a rip-off, £2.5k for a website, these guys are having a laugh.”
Later, their mate helps “fix” the site for free or in exchange for beers, and suddenly the owner is smug. “See, I didn’t need to pay that ridiculous amount.” Cue the back-patting, and perhaps even a social media post proudly showcasing the budget-friendly website that apparently “proved the experts wrong.”
But what is really going on here?
When someone encounters a price they cannot afford, it can trigger feelings of inadequacy. It is the same feeling you get when you walk into a high-end shop and realise you are out of your depth, not just financially, but socially. So instead of feeling vulnerable, people flip the script.
They reframe the professional as a con artist, downplay the complexity of the work and turn financial limitation into moral superiority. It is easier to say, “He is a rip-off,” than to say, “I am struggling financially.”
This psychological defence mechanism is known as cognitive dissonance. It is the discomfort we feel when reality clashes with our self-image, in this case, the belief that we are savvy, capable businesspeople, versus the reality that we cannot afford something essential to the success of our business.
To reduce that discomfort, we convince ourselves the product must be flawed, the provider greedy, the entire profession suspect. And if we can convince others too, even better, shared outrage feels much safer than solitary shame.
This is not unique to web design. You will find it in nearly every skilled trade or service. Other examples include:
A photographer quotes £1,000 for a wedding. The couple balks. “All she does is click a button.” They get a friend to do it for free, then complain when the shots are blurry. But the damage to the photographer’s reputation is already done.
A stylist quotes £90 for a specialist colour job. The client gasps. “My mate did it for Sarah in her kitchen for £20.” A month later they are asking for damage repair, but still telling people the salon is overpriced.
A counsellor charges £60 an hour. Someone who has never done the work says, “That’s just paying someone to listen to you cry.” Never mind the years of training and emotional labour involved and eventually getting your problems sorted.
A qualified tradesman quotes £500 for proper damp-proofing the outside kitchen wall. The homeowner gets their cousin to do a patch-up with leftover plasterboard. A year later, the wall is crumbling, but it is still easier to call the original quote outrageous than to admit they cut corners.
In all of these cases, the dynamic is the same. When someone feels priced out, they often feel pushed out. That sense of exclusion turns to bitterness, which then gets projected onto the person who dared to charge their worth.
This is not just petty behaviour. It has real consequences. It undermines trust in skilled professions. It damages the reputation of another business through no fault of their own. It discourages others from charging fairly and floods the market with low-quality work. But above all, it chips away at the idea that it is acceptable, even admirable, to value your own time, training, and expertise.
If someone cannot afford something, that is nobody’s fault. But turning that into a campaign of criticism is small-minded and short-sighted. While someone might feel proud that their mate “did it for nothing,” they should not forget this simple truth, real professionals are not just charging for the task, they are charging for the results of their labour.
