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As a freelancer, the problem with sites like Upwork is that you are relying on a third party to source your work, which is how you make a living. Not only that,

As a freelancer, the problem with sites like Upwork is that you are relying on a third party to source your work, which is how you make a living. Not only that, but they make it extremely hard / difficult / against the rules to work with the client outside the site. It's such a ridiculous cash grab, I really don't see how so many people think it's worth it. If you (in general) find yourself over-reliant on Upwork, you should ask yourself why you are relying so much on it, especially when it could be pulled out from under you at any time. Is there a reason you need to source your work on Upwork? Have you tried to find work on your own but failed? Or is the momentum of your years on Upwork causing you to continue? Spend some time identifying your weaknesses that caused you to rely on upwork, and try to remedy them.

adventured 9y ago
It's quite interesting that there are countless massive, free job sites and job listing platforms, and yet somehow Upwork is plundering contract workers by taking a cut of the action. They seem like a regressive antique. It'd be equivalent to Monster.com or Dice.com taking a sizable part of my salary if I find a job through them - few would consider such a thing to be reasonable or fair. I think a more open platform needs to exist to counter Upwork's abusive, greed-oriented approach. It should be job and task listing supported (businesses placing wanted ads for all types of traditional jobs and contract work). Zero fees should be taken out of the pockets of the workers. There are plenty of well-demonstrated examples for how to build successful reputation communities that would enable a superior, anti-Upwork approach. Whoever does this successfully will easily overtake the Upwork platform, for exactly the same reason Stackoverflow rapidly overtook Experts Exchange. It's kind of strange that Stackoverflow / Stack Exchange hasn't already extended their platform in a way that would put an end to the value proposition of Upwork; it seems like an obvious target for them.

adventured 9y ago

It's quite interesting that there are countless massive, free job sites and job listing platforms, and yet somehow Upwork is plundering contract workers by taking a cut of the action. They seem like a regressive antique. It'd be equivalent to Monster.com or Dice.com taking a sizable part of my salary if I find a job through them - few would consider such a thing to be reasonable or fair. I think a more open platform needs to exist to counter Upwork's abusive, greed-oriented approach. It should be job and task listing supported (businesses placing wanted ads for all types of traditional jobs and contract work). Zero fees should be taken out of the pockets of the workers. There are plenty of well-demonstrated examples for how to build successful reputation communities that would enable a superior, anti-Upwork approach. Whoever does this successfully will easily overtake the Upwork platform, for exactly the same reason Stackoverflow rapidly overtook Experts Exchange. It's kind of strange that Stackoverflow / Stack Exchange hasn't already extended their platform in a way that would put an end to the value proposition of Upwork; it seems like an obvious target for them.