I am curious as to why the "hiring/freelancing" problem has not been cracked yet. Given the issues with global sites such as oDesk and elance perhaps the proble

I am curious as to why the "hiring/freelancing" problem has not been cracked yet. Given the issues with global sites such as oDesk and elance perhaps the problem really does not scale without sacrificing either reliability or quality and an inherently local solution either in terms of geography for a specific city or more widely for a specific skillset is the most realistic approach so that referrals and personal recommendations still carry some weight.