> An important distinction is that the hackers are not employees of the company who are underpaid or mistreated somehow. Nobody is forcing these people to look

> An important distinction is that the hackers are not employees of the company who are underpaid or mistreated somehow. Nobody is forcing these people to look for bugs. > The people who are after bug bounties get a kick out of finding cool security issues. I am sure a part of them would still be doing it even if there were no reward. "Nobody's forcing them to" and "they'd probably do it for free anyway" aren't what I'd consider valid reasons to keep something on a freelance basis. Perhaps "it's an infrequent odd-job" is a more sensible rationale, if there was one