this. i'm one of those people, i never collaborate with anyone over the internet, because i know that for most people the purpose is to learn off of each other, rather than to just make a song, or to simply do something together. it also makes no sense to me when for instance a deep house guy , lets say in this case someone below my level of production experience, who also literally followed (ergo discovered) me 10 minutes before sending the request,-- asks me if i want to collab, even though i make dubstep, electrohouse and other types of heavier stuff than his. in this occasion, what comes to my mind is what the outcome would be in the first place. i don't look like i want to make deep house (as he could guess from my previous releases), and most deep house producers are not as focused on making dubstep sounds either, so how would we even figure out what to make? also, demoing in my case doesn't work because the stuff i make sounds garbage at first, and only gets better after a month or two of work. if i want to keep growing increasingly, i have to top my previous release every single time. as you can tell from this some insecurity on my end also plays a huge part in this.

thing is, i don't even reply or just say no, because to me it's not worth the hassle. i prefer to work with people around my age, with similar taste, direction and production experience as myself. i already know a few people who fit into this category who i enjoy working with, and unless they don't meet this criteria, i simply don't bother with anyone asking to work on something. if you want to learn together, make sure you've been my friend for some time, come to my house and i'm down for anything. over the internet with people who randomly discovered me 2 minutes ago though..

long story short, people who take production seriously, and are still learning and trying to crawl out of the no-fanbase hell as an upcoming artist, have tendency to be heavily insecure about their work, and if they find that you have nothing better to add than what they already have established for themselves, they will not bother collaborating with anyone. when looking for people to work with, see if they have a lot of actual collaborations posted on their soundcloud/youtube, and make music consitently, instead of trying to heavily improve with each track (changing their sound every 3 months for example), there are certain patterns that can help you figure out who would work with you or not. ps: also watch out for age differences.