"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
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[...]
For example, a physician can charge more for performing surgery
than for a routine office visit, even if both tasks involve the same
length
of time.

Because there are physicians unqualified for surgery competing with the
office practice.

Another example, I am a professor, and I charge more for
consulting work than for teaching.

Because there are teachers unqualified for the consulting work competing
with the classroom practice.

I get paid more for teaching graduate
students than for undergraduate students.

I find this bizarre, but then...practically everything about the "business"
of higher learning I find bizarre.

Our FBO charges more for
instrument instruction than primary instruction, even if it is the same
instructor teaching both.

I've never heard of an FBO with a fee structure like that. I would probably
avoid such an FBO, unless they were the only choice available. However, the
difference is still explainable by the same thing I said earlier: the fee
difference exists because there are flight instructors unqualified for the
instrument training competing for the primary instruction.

I really believe that solo supervision does not
place as much demands on the instructor as inflight instruction.

Possibly, depending on the instructor. But a *good* instructor will be
paying just as much attention to the solo flight as they do to a dual
flight, and will offer just as much useful insight during the postflight
briefing based his observations as he would after a dual flight.

Perhaps you are thinking of instructors who attempt to do all their teaching
in the cockpit. But a good instructor knows that the loud and busy cockpit
is a lousy place to try to teach. The difference between dual and solo
supervision should be minimal. For an instructor where the difference is
large, they are either trying to do too much in the cockpit, or they are not
giving their student their full attention and value during solo supervision.

However,
an independent instructor is free to set whatever rates he wants. That
will
depend on what the market can bear.

Indeed. But don't mistake that for proof of what is reasonable or ethically
valid. The incredibly low wage and poor working conditions that instructors
experience is a clear enough counter-example, regardless of what fee
structures exist within that environment.

Pete