@maaretp Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I fully agree that there are reasons why speaking at #PayToSpeak conferences can be absolutely fine. Even more so if it's a conscious decision.
The original tweet is way too binary and strict

Screenshotting from twitter as engagements on twitter are to be avoided. Is this really how little empathy there is going around as there are no plausible explanations.

Yep, I’ve keynotesd on this organizer’s conference. I will keynote the most notorious #PayToSpeak conference, second time in a month. Modeling women of merit on stages is more important than #PayToSpeak.

Conferences without speakers exist. Conferences without organizers don’t.

Conferences, even when they are not #PayToSpeak, do this so wrong. 1300 euros out of pocket to get back in 6 months is a no go for a single parent of two, and is equally bad for two person families where each makes half of what I make. We have structural issues that make conference speaking inaccessible to many.

For #SeleniumConf we had @conservancy totally getting this and booking flights in pair booking calls with speaker to avoid the out of pocket impact.

My first research paper published at HICSS-36 turned 20 years as I realize HICSS-56 is ongoing. Resharing ’Increasing Understanding of a Modern Testing Perpectice’ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JONa8kSIuJ7bCfYBp3eQurWMkSeHEGKK/view It was #PayToSpeak after peer reviewing content back in the days I thought that meant something positive. Academic publishing isn’t best knowledge, it’s guarded knowledge.