Because my rates are so low, I don't have to spend time making mockups, bid proposals, or have to deal with the know-it-all nephew. I also get to work on fun "what-if" projects and my customers happily pay their bills.
The dirty secret is that I charge for hosting - 60% of my income comes from hosting for solutions made in the past, and I don't even have to lift a finger.... well unless someone finds out about an SSL vulnerability. :)
How do you know this? I've gotten pushback in a top-20 (but not top-5) US city on that, even for appsec work.
The taboo of talking about salaries and rates is something that only benefits the people employing you and maybe a handful of employees, but never benefits employees at large. As a manager I remember finding out how much my employees were underpaid vs. another friend's team in a different division and after bringing up the issue with my director or VP a company-wide memo went out telling all managers and directors to stop talking about salaries across divisions. I wonder why.
I read that article under the assumption that a "Tech consultant" was someone who gave high level strategic advice.
[Although I'd expect those folks to charge a ton more than a programmer]
If you're a skilled, experienced developer and you find somebody trying to pay you less than $75/hour to program computers on a contract basis, regardless of where in the world you live, say no.
There do exist people who work for rates less than that. They're either called "employees" and receive benefits, or they're called "people being taken advantage of."