They’re not going to pay you, anyhow

“Amateurism is obviously differentiated from professionalism, but the criteria for differentiation here is not payment or quality. What distinguishes an amateur is not that he or she is not paid, nor that he or she is doing something in an inexpert way. Rather, the central notion of amateurism is the motivation to engage in a game or other practice for the sake of the game or practice itself. An amateur does what he or she does because of a love of the activity. There is no denying that amateurism carries a certain leisure-class connotation. A discourse of amateurism emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, replete with clearly observable practices of rule making, exclusion and inclusion; amateurism was used by the elites to exclude and differentiate themselves from anyone engaged in manual labor.” – Halvard Leira, “International Relations Pluralism and History—Embracing Amateurism to Strengthen the Profession” (internal quotes and cites omitted)