Not the person you're responding to but I've done a fair bit of contracting, although in the US. A perfect example is scope creep, which happens with all sorts

Not the person you're responding to but I've done a fair bit of contracting, although in the US. A perfect example is scope creep, which happens with all sorts of clients. And, as much as we all hate it as devs it's just the way the world works - stuff changes. Some clients will work with you to update the spec and make sure you're compensated for extra time, where others will just expect you to "roll with the punches" effectively working for free. A personal anecdote of this was when a medium-size company switched payment processors half way through our contract. I was building a custom subscription experience over a 3-month timeline. I had already finished the specified payment parts when they came to me wanting to switch it out for another provider... When explaining that change would effect timeline, and that I would need to be paid for the extra labor they got very combative. I pushed back on them and they threatened to pull the entire contract, sue for the 50% up-front (if not reimbursed), and even heavily alluded to slandering me among other customers of mine in their niche industry. They strong-armed me into doing the work because it was either losing two weeks redoing payment processor integrations, or losing over two months of work and potentially taking a huge reputation hit. Over the years they would reach out for new work, but I never contracted for that client ever again. Gotta pick 'em carefully and I don't tolerate abuse. On a contrasting positive note... Other clients understand scope creep involves extra work, and even proactively offer to pay for the labor/update timelines. For these folks I will bend over backwards because of the respect. --- So back to the "rules change" and "people cheat" - 100% accurate. Not all clients are like this - but, you have to learn to gracefully handle and eventually cull the ones who are.