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

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.