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Freelancer.com has ruined my life

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Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#111

Post by IsaacL »

gexla wrote: post #96
IsaacL wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second my sibling poster. "It's easy for me to armchair quarterback these situations" You have the self-awareness to recognise that you are "armchair quarterbacking", then you decide to... blame the guy for his problems, judge him negatively for speaking out, and go off on some airy tangent about the history of social security. "This is a person who is susceptible to disasters, being forced into the street and can'…

> judge him negatively for speaking out Anything you put out on the internet can be a positive or a negative. This sort of post is not a positive. Part of the reason software buyers pay good rates (those who do) is because they need to know they are dealing with competent service providers. If the provider is offering services for less than that which would sustain a business (which many cash-strapped freelancers do)…

OK, sure. Charging more gives you access to the better class of clients. At age 23 I started out doing shitty freelance PHP work, included a bunch of fixed-price projects. Later on, at age 26/27, (I worked full-time in-between), I spent a year contracting for digital agencies at twice my 23-year-old rate, and had a much smoother time.

So I know first-hand the benefits of "going up in the world" and getting into a higher-quality network of clients. I now look at websites like ClientsFromHell.com and see freelancers managing their careers really badly, not knowing they could be doing much better.

All that is true but it's not what came through in your original comment. You could have said "Ouch, poor guy, he got shafted, but all of this was avoidable. He should start acting like a business rather than a temp worker, and aim to build up his skills, learn to market himself, and find a better class of clients". Instead, you victim-blamed him, and poured scorn on him for speaking out.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#112

Post by arnvald »

featherverse wrote: post #51

All of those "freelancer" websites are scams. Freelancing is about not working for other men. It's about being your own boss. Those websites are not really freelancing, they're temp agencies hiring out short term contract work. That is not freelancing. Those websites all share specific qualities: The salaries are too low, the service quality is poor, and you'll be outbid by unskilled indian labor 90% of the time. Put…

Your comment is unfair. These websites are not scams. A couple of years ago I was looking for 10-15h/week gigs and using one of competitors of freelancer.com proved to work for me. Was it annoying to bid for gigs? Yes. Was the quality of their service low? Yeah, I'd say so. Were salaries low? For someone coming from Eastern Europe - not at all. On top of that, I always got money on time, which is not always the case if you have a direct client.

Yes, you will be outbid by competitors from cheaper countries, but hey, welcome to reality where half of the stuff you buy is produced in China, because you compete with people and companies from all around the world.

And no, if you pay someone $10 to get a gig that'll bring you $100, you're not ripped off, this is how business works, people earn money by helping other people to make money.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#113

Post by sctb »

featherverse wrote: post #54
gressquel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didnt only hire Indians: 1 chinese, 1 indian, and 1 bangladeshi.

If you hire people who aren't citizens of your own country you're going to get ripped off. You need to learn how the planit functions. Never hire anyone outside your own nation for anything. There is no such thing as a global economy.

If you aren't going to comment civilly and substantively, please don't post at all. We ban accounts that continue to break the guidelines like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#114

Post by rokhayakebe »

PeachPlum wrote: post #29
tomxor wrote: post #12

I tried Freelancer.com when I was starting out, I was really happy when I got my first gig, I did a good job, the client was pleased, I got paid an equivalent of £1 an hour but accepted that as my foot in the door... I tried to keep going down this route but quickly realised that this kind of competitive race to the bottom in terms of price is not just the the entry level experience, it's just generally expected. Thi…

Same here at vWorker. Did great work, ranked in the 100s, but it was not sustainable. To top it off I got a job to implement a forex trading algorithm. He had a system to buy/sell on signals. But when it came down to it, it didn't trade profitably. He wouldn't believe the code worked, and I couldn't convince him his scheme was flawed because it worked when he did it manually - and I've watched his youtube videos of h…

Next time just tell the person "No problem. Keep the money. I will publish the software for free online since you believe it does not work, let's see what others think."

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#115

Post by jimnotgym »

BjoernKW wrote: post #90

Some people, freelancers as well as clients and those middlemen that are unfortunately very common in this market, seem to fundamentally misunderstand what a freelancer or contractor is. Freelancing is not some alternative form of employment that allows you to conveniently dispense with social security costs. A freelancer is a self-employed service provider. Like with any other kind of self-employment you’re responsi…

Another one of those 'blame the victim' responses. I work in an SME with more than 100 employees and I outsource legal work, HR work, payroll, tax accounting, property maintenance, web design, recruitment, marketing and lots of IT. Outsourcing specialisms to third parties is as old a society. A fundamental feature of our western democracies is a secure legal framework that means that I can use an agent and I can hold them responsible. When people don't pay, you can take them to court and recover that money. For some reason there is this idea that it is OK for Valley tech companies to work around that and use their size to fleece customers. It isn't, and it's going to catch up with them.

Traditional contracting agencies do this for me at the moment. I call them up and I ask for x work to be done, they find people, reference their work (or know them already). I pay the agency, they pay the contractor. The contractor gets to concentrate on their day job rather than marketing and sales. Most of them seem to use a third-party to do their bookkeeping and tax too. This is how long term contracts work, why should it not be OK for short-term ones? Or projects?

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#116

Post by scriptproof »

BjoernKW wrote: post #90

Some people, freelancers as well as clients and those middlemen that are unfortunately very common in this market, seem to fundamentally misunderstand what a freelancer or contractor is. Freelancing is not some alternative form of employment that allows you to conveniently dispense with social security costs. A freelancer is a self-employed service provider. Like with any other kind of self-employment you’re responsi…

Maybe the OP was expecting something else than a string of blames and moral lessons in his situation. You are definitively an asshole.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#117

Post by jmilloy »

BjoernKW wrote: post #90

Some people, freelancers as well as clients and those middlemen that are unfortunately very common in this market, seem to fundamentally misunderstand what a freelancer or contractor is. Freelancing is not some alternative form of employment that allows you to conveniently dispense with social security costs. A freelancer is a self-employed service provider. Like with any other kind of self-employment you’re responsi…

> If you try to outsource those core responsibilities to another entity you only have yourself to blame.

This statement is objectively false. If you do you own marketing, sales, etc, then you have yourself to blame. If you outsource them, then you have the entity to blame. If a company claims to provide those things and fails, then harsh criticism is warranted. Maybe you meant that if you expect those responsibilities to be handled by a middleman than doesn't actually claim to offer them, then you have yourself to blame?

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#118

Post by gexla »

watwut wrote: post #101
gexla wrote: post #33

This review should get pulled. If the reviewer posted this under his real name, then he should remove it. This review will kill his reputation, which will cause more problems than anything mentioned in the review. If it's not a real name, then I imagine it's a violation. This is the only review under this user. The review has a TLDR at the top, but my own TLDR for this review would be "I was desperate". It's easy for…

0.) What is "person is susceptible to disasters"? You seriously suggest there is something shameful about people who had parents die/car accidents and such people should keep it secret? 1.) Companies and services are open to criticism from their customers or providers. 2.) If you allow and accept positive subjective reviews, you should accept negative subjective reviews too. They are part of the system. Free market r…

Medical expenses are a top cause of bankruptcy in the United States (and many other countries). Dealing with this possibility should be a top priority. A person who is going to get wiped out financially by a car wreck is far more susceptible to disasters than someone who is covered by insurance. We don't know how severe the injuries were, but without insurance, even something relatively minor can wipe you out.

Back in the day, many employers provided insurance plans which would cover for things like this. The employee would miss some time for the injury, but the medical costs were largely covered. My parents were relatively poor and I had a life-threatening illness (months in the hospital) which was fully covered by insurance.

When you're working for yourself, you have to cover for these potential disasters. Money pending in your Freelancer account shouldn't be part of that planning.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#119

Post by arvinsim »

robjan wrote: post #102
vbezhenar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone or Macbook price is roughly the same everywhere. Cost of living is a tiny part of expenses for a competent worker.

Developers in the developing world typically don't use iPhones and Macbook pros. You can easily get a "good enough" machine for 10% of the price of a Macbook.

If you use shitty tools, you get shitty results.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#120

Post by [deleted] »

dhimes wrote: post #82

Well, first let me say that my experience as someone who has hired on freelancer has been very good. I have found some excellent developers there. But I'll also point out that (1) I spec my projects pretty carefully, almost to the point of 'hell I might as well build it myself'; and (2) I pay. And when the project is harder than I originally thought, I don't say "tough shit you signed a contract dumbass" but rather I…

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