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> Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating That’s a pretty big “just” Depriving someone of what had been a key business relationship without any communica

by CPLX 8y ago

> Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating That’s a pretty big “just” Depriving someone of what had been a key business relationship without any communication is an abject failure.

gojomo 8y ago
We know that Wallace is angry, and didn't get clearer info until he hunted it down, and that's certainly a failure. But his account doesn't include a timeframe of how many days he was in this "lockout" state. (Was it a day? A week?) It's not clear if other details would have come via other channels, if not for the early warning he got from his direct backchannel-contact. And suppose he and the buyer had reached a de-facto understanding: "we want to contract you for all your hours; please hold back your hours from other buyers to be ready to take our assignments". That's somewhat indicated by way this was quickly discovered at the moment he finished prior assignments (seemingly from the same buyer), and the buyer tried to hire him for immediate followup assignments. It's exactly that kind of de-facto exclusivity, where a single employer assigns all your work, that gets you slapped by tax/employment authorities. Were there other highly-rated, qualified freelancers the buyer could have used instead? Were there other buyers ready to contract for Wallace's services, at the same rate as he'd been getting? If either or both, then rather than primarily "depriving someone of… a key business relationship", Upwork could in fact have been ensuring enough independent-contractor relationships to keep both buyer and freelancer on the right-side-of-the-law. (It's possible placing a single gig with another freelancer, or taking a single gig from another buyer, would have been enough to prevent the lock-up.) After all, the buyer chose Upwork as the only way they hire contractors – and explicitly rejected the option to hire or contract with Wallace directly. They wanted Upwork to ensure compliance with tax/employment-law... which may be exactly what Upwork did for their paying customer, albeit with missing, poor, or sluggish communication.
- CPLX 8y ago
  Yeah sure so what. All that rationalization is out the window if they just cut someone off like that without actually communicating those reasons. The reason I take exception to it is that the concept of shadowbanning is deeply baked into the SV/startup culture and it's very often completely unethical. It's a pet peeve of mine. Sure, if you're trying to stop forum spam then who cares. And I do understand that when startups were small they were incredibly vulnerable to just being overwhelmed by an avalanche of fraud. So historically, I get why there's a culture where platforms just ban or restrict people without telling them comes from. But one thing SV has been enormously bad at is not realizing that they aren't feisty underdogs any more, they're the ruling class, and they often have tremendous economic power over people. When people depend on you for their livelihood, or for transportation or housing or similar, then you actually do owe them transparency and an explanation of what's going on.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Could they have done better? Yes. If they wanted to. Could they have "warned" both parties of the legal regs? Yes again. None the less, I suspect this was also in the T&Cs. Whatever the case might be, Upwork is in the matchmaker business - not the relationship business. It's not an agency. It's an escrow of sorts in a fancy wrapper. The less legal exposure - including legal "advice" about what's been happening between the service-needer and the freelancer - is probably, truth be told, what they seek to maintain. It is, after all, not their job / role to do that. Long to short, Upwork could have done better, but so could the other two parties using Upwork. p.s. All both sides needed to do was open an account on another "escrow" site and then split the work between the two. The escrows wouldn't know. But of course, the IRS might.

by CPLX 8y ago

> Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating That’s a pretty big “just” Depriving someone of what had been a key business relationship without any communication is an abject failure.

gojomo 8y ago

We know that Wallace is angry, and didn't get clearer info until he hunted it down, and that's certainly a failure. But his account doesn't include a timeframe of how many days he was in this "lockout" state. (Was it a day? A week?) It's not clear if other details would have come via other channels, if not for the early warning he got from his direct backchannel-contact. And suppose he and the buyer had reached a de-facto understanding: "we want to contract you for all your hours; please hold back your hours from other buyers to be ready to take our assignments". That's somewhat indicated by way this was quickly discovered at the moment he finished prior assignments (seemingly from the same buyer), and the buyer tried to hire him for immediate followup assignments. It's exactly that kind of de-facto exclusivity, where a single employer assigns all your work, that gets you slapped by tax/employment authorities. Were there other highly-rated, qualified freelancers the buyer could have used instead? Were there other buyers ready to contract for Wallace's services, at the same rate as he'd been getting? If either or both, then rather than primarily "depriving someone of… a key business relationship", Upwork could in fact have been ensuring enough independent-contractor relationships to keep both buyer and freelancer on the right-side-of-the-law. (It's possible placing a single gig with another freelancer, or taking a single gig from another buyer, would have been enough to prevent the lock-up.) After all, the buyer chose Upwork as the only way they hire contractors – and explicitly rejected the option to hire or contract with Wallace directly. They wanted Upwork to ensure compliance with tax/employment-law... which may be exactly what Upwork did for their paying customer, albeit with missing, poor, or sluggish communication.

CPLX 8y ago
Yeah sure so what. All that rationalization is out the window if they just cut someone off like that without actually communicating those reasons. The reason I take exception to it is that the concept of shadowbanning is deeply baked into the SV/startup culture and it's very often completely unethical. It's a pet peeve of mine. Sure, if you're trying to stop forum spam then who cares. And I do understand that when startups were small they were incredibly vulnerable to just being overwhelmed by an avalanche of fraud. So historically, I get why there's a culture where platforms just ban or restrict people without telling them comes from. But one thing SV has been enormously bad at is not realizing that they aren't feisty underdogs any more, they're the ruling class, and they often have tremendous economic power over people. When people depend on you for their livelihood, or for transportation or housing or similar, then you actually do owe them transparency and an explanation of what's going on.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Could they have done better? Yes. If they wanted to. Could they have "warned" both parties of the legal regs? Yes again. None the less, I suspect this was also in the T&Cs. Whatever the case might be, Upwork is in the matchmaker business - not the relationship business. It's not an agency. It's an escrow of sorts in a fancy wrapper. The less legal exposure - including legal "advice" about what's been happening between the service-needer and the freelancer - is probably, truth be told, what they seek to maintain. It is, after all, not their job / role to do that. Long to short, Upwork could have done better, but so could the other two parties using Upwork. p.s. All both sides needed to do was open an account on another "escrow" site and then split the work between the two. The escrows wouldn't know. But of course, the IRS might.