As I go about my job as a photographer, I am often asked by the people I am photographing if they can “get a copy” of the photograph. When I tell them they can purchase anything I shoot for the newspaper at our SmugMug site, they sometimes seem a little disappointed, as though the images I make should be free for some reason. Others excitedly tell me they will purchase the image, but only a fraction of them follow through.

I have often noticed that the reverse is true: if someone makes an image of me and I asked them email it or bring it to me, even if I offer to pay for it, and even if I give them my card with my email address on it, I almost never see it. In fact, I make a point, if I want to possess a picture of myself, of having someone make it with one of my cameras. Even photographers with whom I have travelled …Robert, Jim, Greg… have been reluctant to share images they have of me.
I’m not quite sure what to make of all this, except to say that if I tell someone I will email a photo, I will email that photo.
I expect social media has something to do with it. People think that if they put something on their Facebook wall, somehow between the conspiracy memes and the deep fried cheesecake recipes, we’ll be able to find the photos we want, even though they will be too small and subject to Facebook’s brutal compression algorithms. Or maybe it’s just that most people are so poorly organized that they can’t weed through their tens of thousands of redundant images to send you that one photo you requested.
Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical, but it’s true. “Sure, I’d be glad to sent it!” really means you will never hear from them again.

Well said.
That might be the clearest, sharpest, most “in-focus” football action shot I’ve ever seen. The “biggened” image is amazing.
I’ve had the same problems with fixing people’s computers since the early 80’s. While I spent hundreds of dollars on books and hundreds more hours learning how they worked people didn’t think I should be compensated for spending hours fixing their problem. In probably the worst case, I spent two days working on a local business owners computer in the evenings, probably 10-12 hours worth of time. Once fixed he assured me if “I ever needed anything” to call him.
About a month later I need something looked at on my car. He took 15 minutes to test something, tell me what was wrong, and write me a bill for $40. He took the time to explain to me that since this was “his business” he had to charge me for the time whereas my time wasn’t really a business and, therefore, wasn’t deserving of compensation.
He’s out of business now.