Would you work for Google for free?

There’s been a lot of hype at the moment because Google is contacting artists asking them to work on skinning and theming Google Chrome. The reason for the hype? Google wants them to work for free and there appears to be a pretty big backlash. I can see both sides of the argument here. Google is a massive (MASSIVE) company – they can afford to pay these designers ten times over, economic climate or no economic climate. With that in mind maybe they should, too. It’s tough to find work at the moment, especially if you freelance. That new website design that a company was considering 6 months ago is suddenly on the back burner.