What's Your Opinion on Offering Payment for Customer Development Interviews? [i will not promote]

I've tried both offering payment or just asking folks to chat about their problems. When I didn't offer money the response rate was extreeeemely low and I noticed a high percentage of people that hop on the calls are a lot more "yappy" and just seem like they wanna talk but were on average way harder to get direct answers from.

Inspired by Jason Cohen's blog post "When you have nothing: How to find potential customers to interview" I tried offering money in a similar outreach to his. His was:

In my initial outreach, I said: “I will pay any fee you feel is fair for an hour of your time. I’m not asking for a donation; I’m genuinely interested in your expertise and opinion.” This showed respect, both for their knowledge and time. I was shocked at the response: Only one person out of 40 asked to be paid! Reciprocity works.

When paying I've so far gotten a higher response rate and much better information, but I've definitely NOT received the same level of generosity that Jason Cohen got. Everyone is asking to be payed and they quote me often really really high prices like well over double what their hourly rate would be assuming 40 hour work week.

I'm curious what your opinion on offering money vs not offering money? And for the folks that have done the money route, how do you handle the negotiations as to the dollar amount? Did you have the same level of generosity from your customers that Jason Cohen did - or do you think there's something about his likability, target customer, or problem he was solving that made people not bother with payment?