Not GP, but the bit about the author signing up for Doordash as a driver also made me think the post is fake. According to the post, the author lost her client

Not GP, but the bit about the author signing up for Doordash as a driver also made me think the post is fake. According to the post, the author lost her client on the day of making the post, and within that same day decided to sign up for Doordash before making the Reddit post. Even if she was under severe financial duress, it would be a surprisingly quick decision, but as a writer previously making $80/hr and having the financial resources to take 3 years off work, it just doesn't seem believable. In the intro, she states that she's using a throwaway to avoid other clients identifying her, so she clearly does have other clients, and she does mention a "normal" rate of $50/hr, in addition to having worked as a "writer for over a decade, [having] worked with top brands as a freelancer, [and having] more than a dozen published articles on well known websites". How is the best use of time for somebody like that to work an unskilled $20/hr gig instead of investing time into building new client relationships? Even if the author believes that this client firing her implies that her current profession is doomed long-term, it just seems out of character for somebody like that to resort to being a Doordash driver. It just seems like an appeal to the fear of sliding down the social ladder, and as such a manipulative tool (just like the clickbait title) to produce a high-engagement Reddit post.