Love this discussion! My view:

The rate you should be willing to pay (in the West) is likely way higher than income/8k. The rate is your opportunity cost. I.e., how much value you trust yourself to create during that hour. That includes reading a book/learning. All you need to be confident is that what you learn is going to be worth more over the course of your lifetime than what you pay for an hour of somebody else‘s time.

There are trade-offs and subtleties to consider. For example, you need to buy food and shelter today, so these thoughts only work once you are covering your baseline costs.

I used to outsource little, but since I started thinking this way I’ve massively increased. Having said that, I believe that the rates paid in most of the West for manual labor are a form of modern slavery, but that’s an entirely different discussion.