no, $10/hr won't cut it unless that's the majority portion of the total hourly costs. private pilots can "cost share" with passengers, but the pilot must still pay the majority of the expenses to be legal.
The wording is "pro rata" not "majority".
Also, compensation doesn't have to be to the pilot. If the company that enables the pilot to fly is compensated, then that flight is for compensation.
Finally, for expense sharing, it's got to be for a common purpose other than the flight itself. The pilot taking jumpers up can never be for a common purpose unless the plane can land without a pilot.
The options to get paid to fly as non-commercial are:
* Work somewhere that you have to travel, and fly yourself. Reimbursement is allowed if it's incidental.
* Fly yourself and others you know or work with somewhere that everyone (including you) are going to participate. Common purpose rule applies, and you can split the cost of the flight, but not be reimbursed for it.
* Fly for a charity. Your operating expenses can be reimbursed, and they can receive money.
* Work for an aircraft sales company and provide demonstration flights to prospective customers. Must have 200 hours, but can get paid and have flight expenses reimbursed or provided for free.
Anything else requires a commercial license (and if holding out to the public, an air carrier cert).
There are TONS of threads on this topic and the rules haven't substantially changed in decades. No amount of "maybe if I just..." will work to get around any of the rules. Either you're sneaky and don't get caught, or you get caught (maybe even in the distant future) and get fined, revoked, etc. Or maybe you don't, but then go to work for an air carrier and they deny you because they figured out from your logs what you did (Oh, that plane is owned by billyjoebob's banner tow company, and you had only 130 hours...)
I found the reference I liked:
http://www.avweb.com/news/avlaw/186346-1.html