> Marketplaces like UpWork and ELance, which were originally designed to match US companies with global talent, have literally made it impossible for US enginee

> Marketplaces like UpWork and ELance, which were originally designed to match US companies with global talent, have literally made it impossible for US engineers to find work... As a freelancer working from India - this stands true even for the good experienced freelancers in India. Upwork (and Elance that is now Upwork) make it hard to get good rates - forget about raising rates. And when Elance merged to Upwork - it just made it harder to filter out good clients (I had some respect for the former Elance). Most buyer's have this perspective - "You are from India, your cost must be cheap!". Add to that rated courses on Udemy that underline "Get your work done at 1/10th the cost" (that I subscribed too) and similar stuff on YouTube. Blogging helps. Mine is a pretty small one. But I got quite a few leads from my blog and at one point I was heavily overloaded with requests that would give me acceptable rates. I stopped writing for 6-8 months and the leads stopped coming in. Also, these days video-bloggers(good ones) get to take much of the leads.