Imagine your hourly rate is ostensibly $50/hr. Your *actual* hourly rate depends greatly on the type of job you have.

1) If you get paid for 40 hours every week, but you work less: your actual rate is higher

2) If you get paid for 40 hours every week, but you work MORE: your actual rate is lower

3) If you only bill hours you actually spent working: it's truly $50/hr

4) If you're freelancing or doing bounties, then you spend a lot of unpaid time figuring out what to work on next. So your actual rate is lower. (I think a lot of freelance positions take this into account.)

I used to work "full-time," less than 40 hours per week, with a salary. But in the last few years, I've just done a few tiny odd jobs for friends, with negotiated rates. So the difference has been quite notable to me.

I think hourly rates at full-time jobs anchor people on reasonable rates outside of full-time jobs.

e.g. For one task, my friend looked up the typical hourly rate for someone who does the job full-time, to negotiate a rate with me. Neither of us thought about the fact that working full-time means their actual rate could easily be twice their ostensible rate. (But that's hard to assess from the outside.)

Another one of my friends paid me pretty generously when I did a task for them. They calculated my pay by thinking about A. how much time I saved them, and B. the actual value of their time.