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LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

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Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#171

Post by f6v »

seanwilson wrote: post #31

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211064098-Log-T... > It’s easy to bill your time using the Upwork desktop app. ... > When you have logging turned on, the app takes random screen captures six times per hour—once per 10-minute billing segment. Anything visible on your screen will display in your Work Diary, but you have the option, in Settings, to choose whether the screen captures your entire desktop or o…

Imagine proving content services. The competition is so fierce, you have no choice. Especially if you live somewhere outside Southeast Asia. Someone from Philippines can work for 7$/hr, and you can’t.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#172

Post by f6v »

Softcadbury wrote: post #153
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I signed up for Upwork, a couple of years ago. I knew a few people that had used the platform to hire freelancers, and they raved about it. I never got even one legit lead. Not one. I did, however, get quite a few scammers. One was quite scary. It was a local person, with a crazy project proposal, that kept trying to get me to meet them in person, in remote locations. I nuked my Upwork account, months ago. Even thoug…

Can you say more about what these scammers want? Do they want you to work for them for free?

Some want a freelancer account that is registered in US or Western Europe. I guess it’s easier to get a high-paying client if you have a local face behind your proposal.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#173

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

seanwilson wrote: post #31

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211064098-Log-T... > It’s easy to bill your time using the Upwork desktop app. ... > When you have logging turned on, the app takes random screen captures six times per hour—once per 10-minute billing segment. Anything visible on your screen will display in your Work Diary, but you have the option, in Settings, to choose whether the screen captures your entire desktop or o…

Since I learned what upwork was the hard way, I not only stay away from it but also reject any other consultant who says that this is usually the platform they source their projects from.

At first sight the problem seems to be poor quality engineers/skills. The true issue is that its race-to-the-bottom pricing strategy (one that gets hand-wavily justified by intrusive surveillance / screen recording) attracts the worst of the worst employers who do not understand SDLC and requirements.

personal anecdote: few years ago I joined a failing company which was massively behind and which did everything wrong you could possible do wrong, but where I knew its founders and investors and believed I could turn things around. We used upwork because the boss was convinced it was cost effective ("8 engineers for the price of 3" the boss liked to say) and so all our engineers came from various low-cost countries via upwork. The same engineers were also completely lost since nobody managed requirements for them. And so the product (an MVP) which was promised to be ready 2 years ago was still unfinished (with no completion date in sight).

These "contractors" had no agency or motivation to get things done. They were all not skilled for what was expected. It was the fault of the management not upwork, but still I ended up canceling every single contractor from upwork except 1.

I expect any external contractor to think critically of requirements they are given and raise flags if something is off. Upwork doesn't deliver this. They give you people who are stuck between a rock and a hard place and who can't afford to ruffle feathers. Both because they need the money but also because the management themselves doesn't think they're capable (e.g. "how could they be taken serious if their work only costs $25/hrs" - "of course they're not important and we can easily replace them at any time").

Upwork attracts people who don't understand the pricing of their skills. From over 100 people I was forced to engage with on that platform not a single one undwerstood what requirements and deadlines are. Unless you fully specify what exactly is to be done (and also how) you will never get what you asked for. The real issue however isn't the engineers but Upwork itself who attracts this type of client base.

Since that experience I fared well to not only give prospective engineers a pass that say they use the platform a lot but also any clients who use upwork in any shape or form.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#174

Post by loceng »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #167
AznHisoka wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scams aside, were you using Upwork as a freelancer or client? The experience is very different depending on which side you are on. It’s a client market currently as there a glut of freelancers for your picking right now. Lots of competition.

As a freelancer. All the rave reviews were from clients. After the fact, I asked around for friends that had tried it as freelancers, and they all had similar stories to mine. It seems that Upwork is really a platform for offshore work. Some of these folks are undoubtedly good, but it's probably a crapshoot, which, to be fair, is also the case for local talent. With cheap offshore work, you can try out a couple of ou…

You need to learn to game the system like the most popular freelancers and agencies seem to learn to do; you're not getting kicked off the platform as a freelancer/agency even if you engage in blackmail/extortion for 5 star ratings - even when there's proof - as I have experienced.

It's like you need to start to create some fake accounts, or friends to signup, give you projects - worth a lot or not, or hidden, but with a great testimonial left. Then you'll increase in the rankings, get more attention from legitimate people, etc.

Freelancers on Upwork are mostly always listed as available, even if they aren't - the trick being you're listed for $x-xx higher than your previous rate - so you're getting a revenue increase if you take new jobs.

Personally I'd be too honest to trick people like that, but people who are open to dishonest or bad actions on the platform seem to do well.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#176

Post by atleta »

rdevsrex wrote: post #92
seanwilson wrote: post #31

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211064098-Log-T... > It’s easy to bill your time using the Upwork desktop app. ... > When you have logging turned on, the app takes random screen captures six times per hour—once per 10-minute billing segment. Anything visible on your screen will display in your Work Diary, but you have the option, in Settings, to choose whether the screen captures your entire desktop or o…

Well, when you first start out, it's not like you always have that many choices. I started working with clients on Upwork because I couldn't get any full time programming jobs at a company, but I could get contracts on Upwork. And the way they've set it up is if you use the Dekstop app you get paid even if there is a dispute, but if you don't, you might not get paid. So again, it's not like I wanted it this way, but…

This is interesting. I usually advise beginners NOT to start freelancing before they get some experience with a full time job at a company (preferably a non-remote/on-site position). If the market starts to push people into the other direction, that will, I think, further decrease the chances of any client getting their project finished.

And I definitely don't mean this as a critique towards you. (If I want to be honest, I've first tried freelancing/remoting after 3 months of FT work, which wasn't even really coding.)

But quite a lot of these engagements end in poor quality results or simply fail. I've talked to a lot of people, non-tech clients, for whom it didn't work out. And obviously the reason is that they have no idea how to manage such a project, how to pick a good candidate (both wrt to technical skills AND management/self-management/product management skills). I.e. they don't know what they need.

Now a bit more experienced developers will more often (though far from always!) at least have an idea how to work with a client, how to push back on stupid requests, how to actually manage the project AND the client. Because sometimes clients will come up with or slowly navigate themselves towards modes of operations that actually make a good outcome a lot less likely. And the end result is that they spend too much to get too little and the freelancer works too much to get too little.

One symptom is wanting to monitor the desktop of the developer. That shows that whoever thinks they can resolve a dispute this way have no idea about software development, they can't judge and understand whether they are getting adequate value for their money, so they resort to something that they understand (standing behind the shoulder of the person they pay). But which unfortunately doesn't work. And how it makes things worse: e.g. they scare away the more experienced guys.

A similar fallacy is being anal about deadlines and fixed costs. Again, a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#177

Post by atleta »

Ayesh wrote: post #8

I used to be a freelancer, finding work mainly on Upwork, and I loathe them now. What started as a 10% commission was upped to 20%, and they tried to do various tricks on both clients and freelancers to a point that I stopped doing freelance work altogether. It was a great platform, and I don't think a 10% clear cut wasn't enough for them for an organic growth. Another thing I loathe is LinkedIn. I'm sure many people…

It's interesting, ~20% now seems to be the norm. (Not just for developer platforms.) 10% is pretty reasonable. I also used to work for a few years through upwork, sill when it was elance. I kind of remember that the rate was around 10%, maybe higher for smaller projects. Again, pretty reasonable.

A few years ago I've co-founded a platform for remote psych counselling and I remember my partner was pushing for a 30% commission. I told him that's how you motivate your users to try to get around you and not keep paying in the long run.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#178

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #167
AznHisoka wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scams aside, were you using Upwork as a freelancer or client? The experience is very different depending on which side you are on. It’s a client market currently as there a glut of freelancers for your picking right now. Lots of competition.

As a freelancer. All the rave reviews were from clients. After the fact, I asked around for friends that had tried it as freelancers, and they all had similar stories to mine. It seems that Upwork is really a platform for offshore work. Some of these folks are undoubtedly good, but it's probably a crapshoot, which, to be fair, is also the case for local talent. With cheap offshore work, you can try out a couple of ou…

It's been years since I was on Upwork (started w/ Elance) and I felt similar frustrations. Then I signed up as a buyer, posted a job similar to the ones I was seeking, and analyzed the patterns of freelancer pitches and how the system was structured.

I started noticing missed opportunities. As a buyer, you only see the first few sentences of a proposal unless you hit the See More option. Most freelancers weren't maximizing this space. NOBODY used video. There was minimal personalization. And so on.

So I would make a personalized video for every pitch and reference it in the first sentence. Short, nothing with production or anything like that. Mostly I wanted the buyers to get a vibe for me. I'd do light research on the buyer and look at his/her feedback and reviews for other freelancers they've worked with, then I used that language to demonstrate that I had the same characteristics and skills they value the most.

This all increased my interest and close rate tremendously. I also learned which gigs to never bid on, which is a little art and a little science. You can tell by how the project descriptions are written which ones to avoid.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#179

Post by jeltz »

3np wrote: post #156
f8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work full-time and get monitored like this. Ever hear of Hubstaff? It's an unfortunate reality for some remote workers and I don't agree with it but it happens. There can be an inherent distrust from employers when they're unable to see you physically working. It's more of an assurance thing, but I've gotten used to working exclusively in VM's.

While I think it's stupid and would never dream of going in that direction with my staff (the most talented would probably bolt fast), in principle I see nothing wrong with it as long as: 1) The employer has paid for all necessary hardware 2) If anything goes through third-party services, I can work on the tracked environment in a way that doesn't expose my personal information in any way (e.g. I shouldn't be require…

I don't feel any of that solves my main issue: that I would not want to work for someone who does not trust me. That does not seem like a good environment where I can be productive and work on things which benefit my employer. The privacy issues is not the only issue.

The only case I would accept something like this is if I was working at eg the NSA, a really high value target for state actors. Then I would get why nobody can be trusted.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#180

Post by Kaze404 »

f8 wrote: post #69
seanwilson wrote: post #31

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211064098-Log-T... > It’s easy to bill your time using the Upwork desktop app. ... > When you have logging turned on, the app takes random screen captures six times per hour—once per 10-minute billing segment. Anything visible on your screen will display in your Work Diary, but you have the option, in Settings, to choose whether the screen captures your entire desktop or o…

I work full-time and get monitored like this. Ever hear of Hubstaff? It's an unfortunate reality for some remote workers and I don't agree with it but it happens. There can be an inherent distrust from employers when they're unable to see you physically working. It's more of an assurance thing, but I've gotten used to working exclusively in VM's.

This is complete insanity to me. So now you're not only selling your knowledge and your time, but you're also selling your complete undivided attention with likely no changes to your paycheck. How do you employ someone and give them access to your company's systems but not give them the absolute minimum amount of trust? It makes no sense.
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