Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why you should never use Upwork

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 274 posts

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#241

Post by vram22 »

phonon wrote: post #190
vram22 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upwork rate is 22.5%? I think when it was Odesk (before merging with Elance) it was 10% - last I checked, some time ago. And when Odesk started it was 30%, IIRC.

It's 5%, 10% or 20% depending on the amount spent per contract. They also charge a fee to the employer now for paying by credit card instead of ACH (2.75%) https://www.upwork.com/blog/2016/05/upwork-pricing/ I'm not against the changes overall (in my case, it will mean more money in the pockets of the people I hire) but it seems to bias against contractors who specialize in one-off smaller projects. IMHO anyone with…

Good point, there shouldn't be that bias.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#242

Post by vanderreeah »

Mithaldu wrote: post #120
almata wrote: post #69

From the Upwork FAQ: "You'll need to download and use the Upwork Team App—this tool includes the Work Diary, which ensures you are guaranteed payment. By taking work-in-progress screenshots every 10 minutes, it provides proof to your clients that you are hard at work." Screenshots every 10 minutes? You mean... screenshots of MY SCREEN every 10 minutes? That was what made me close their website and totally forget it u…

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

This is an admirably clear statement of a position I find almost impossible to relate to. I'm not sure I can be as lucid as Mithaldu, but I'll try to put it two ways:

1) The notion that one is "doing something wrong" by not being able or willing to enforce a strict separation between work and one's private life seems almost sociopathic. When one sells one's labour his mind and emotions are - like it or not - part of the sale. It's simply the human condition. To absolutely abrogate all of one's interests, in the service of a "boss", requires an austerity of mind that perhaps Mithaldu and some others can perform without difficulty, but which for many is impossible.

2) One could (well, I probably couldn't) make the case that the degree of exploitation that characterises all relations between "boss" and employee is sufficient to permit the importation of at least some safety valve - some kind of relaxation, be it 10 mins personal email, facebook, whatever - in compensation. Indeed if you want to take the employer's POV, it's surely a good thing.

I don't think I've been particularly accurate here but it's a fuzzy approximation of the beginnings of a response!

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#243

Post by cygned »

Whachadoo wrote: post #213
cygned wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Not only that this approach does not really fit remote development work, you are basically forced to install spyware on your machine. What a crazy idea.

It has pluses and minuses. I moved from Freelancer to Upwork and my initial thoughts were that the freelancers (and thus clients) on Upwork were better because of the tracking software that basically guaranteed your worker was doing what was necessary. But in hindsight the clients are basically just as bad and the tracking software just makes remote workers feel spied on and untrusted. I've moved on now and have repe…

It's just that I know how I work and it would not fit my model. If I have a problem to be solved I sometimes just go for a walk with my dog thinking about solutions. The client knows about that and is fine with it.

> TopTal

I had my bad experience with their application process as a developer.

I also have the other perspective as I have hired some devs from their and they do great work!

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#244

Post by jungletek »

iagooar wrote: post #239
asoskm wrote: post #16

Totally agree with the article, and I am more than certain that such acts and extortionate behaviour are widespread on the platform. It seems it is part of their business model to allow clients in developed countries to find people in developing countries (all with weak legal systems and corruption) to commit illegal acts (both violations of public and private law). Just look at how many jobs involve rewriting, scrap…

Christmas gifts in October? Have I missed something?

Some people plan ahead / take advantage of sales.

Strange, I know. I don't get it either.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#245

Post by atleta »

tptacek wrote: post #61
afro88 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just thinking out loud here (haven't tried this) but maybe a better approach would be to not mention time. Simply ask for project specs and break it down into priced components if need be. $1500 at $100 an hour sounds expensive if you're comparing to the CEO's salary. But $1500 for a piece of sales lead infrastructure that has to be built but can't be off the shelf bought. That sounds reasonable.

Heading off the objections you'll get to this: the downside to fixed-price billing is that it maximally exposes the worker both to errors in their own estimation and also to errors in specifications provided by client, and to scope changes. Fixed-price bidding forces the consultant to shoulder a lot of risk. That's fine, if you're sophisticated. Certainly I think fixed-price bids are smarter than hourly billing. In a…

I'm not sure I get the point (besides using days for the estimation, which is a good practice). So in the end you are doing it on a fixed-price term, but you're stating a daily rate as well, for scope changes. (Which you'll still have to argue about, and you're still left with the estimation errors and the arguments about the specification errors.)

Or did I miss something? (Or maybe there are a lot of people, who will not state a rate for the out-of-scope work and then they'll get into trouble when trying to ask money for that?)

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#246

Post by atleta »

tptacek wrote: post #61
afro88 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just thinking out loud here (haven't tried this) but maybe a better approach would be to not mention time. Simply ask for project specs and break it down into priced components if need be. $1500 at $100 an hour sounds expensive if you're comparing to the CEO's salary. But $1500 for a piece of sales lead infrastructure that has to be built but can't be off the shelf bought. That sounds reasonable.

Heading off the objections you'll get to this: the downside to fixed-price billing is that it maximally exposes the worker both to errors in their own estimation and also to errors in specifications provided by client, and to scope changes. Fixed-price bidding forces the consultant to shoulder a lot of risk. That's fine, if you're sophisticated. Certainly I think fixed-price bids are smarter than hourly billing. In a…

On a side note, a few years ago I worked with a company (as a project owner) that only works on a daily rate base. However, what they offered is that they created an estimate, that contained, among others a 30% 'risk buffer' and their offer was that if they use that up (in addition to the base bid, of course) then they'll reduce their price to their cost (0 profit) level. Which basically means that it only covers the salary of the developer (plus the office space, supporting staff, etc.).

That meant a 33% reduction at that time from their prices, which is nice to in case of a project overrun, and of course is a kind of a warrant for the client that the company will do its best that the project is on time and that the estimate is accurate.

I still use the same idea/format when rarely doing estimates for potential clients, but I'm not sure how well it works with freelancers. Whether they can figure out a '0 profit' reduced price for themselves. (Maybe that could be calculated based on the 'if I work 8 hours per day, without any holidays/sick leave/spending time on new project' assumption.) The point is that it should be convincingly low for the client, but not extra cheap.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#247

Post by TwiSparklePony »

marcell wrote: post #109

Shameless plug: I run a new company, CodeGophers, that competes with Upwork. We get a lot of unhappy Upwork customers. Unlike Upwork our service has a quality guarantee, so clients aren't forced to manage freelancers, and deal with low quality work. It's kind of like a product manager and freelancer combo, and overall it's much easier for the client. If you're unhappy with Upwork, please give us a shot. You can see o…

Does not having huge amounts of experience matter? I am a college student interested in doing side work like it appears you offer. I'm fairly skilled in the technologies I know but probably less so than a full-time freelancer or developer.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#248

Post by lowkeyokay »

Whachadoo wrote: post #210
throwaway7312 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long-time UpWork user, this has saved our butts a few times, especially with technical hires. We've had times we had hires billing full work weeks but seemed not to be getting much done. But how do you know if it really ought to take 10 hours or 40 hours to complete a task? I've done enough research, writing, and coding myself to know sometimes the thing you think will take 10 minutes ends up taking 2 days inste…

I can understand where you're coming from but surely the work done should speak for itself? I've logged hundreds of hours on Upwork as a remote worker and while every screenshot and all the keystrokes logged, etc, were relevant to the job it does completely prevent you from (for example) checking your normal inbox in case that gets screenshotted and you don't want your client to see that. Okay maybe you don't want yo…

Not being a coder myself, I have hired freelancers from Toptal on two projects. The entire experience was pretty good. The contact at Toptal took time find the the match.

On the first project we got a pretty good front-end-dev. I will say that I've learned a lot about project management in the process. On the second project we got a very skilled front-end-dev. We're still working with him daily.

It's not exactly cheap. At $70/hour I think it's fair. Don't know how the devs feel about Toptal or how much they charge but, from my point of view it's not all bad in the freelance market.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#249

Post by k__ »

Mithaldu wrote: post #204
triplesec wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very accepting of severe authority and surveillance

Welcome to Germany. On a more serious note: No, i am not. Only in my work life.

I'm from Germany too and as far as I can tell this isn't the truth for every company here. When I find clients/employers behave like that, I warn them and then I quit. This is what everyone should do. If you accept such horrendous conditions it's your fault people begin to think this is "normal".

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#250

Post by Mithaldu »

vanderreeah wrote: post #242
Mithaldu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

This is an admirably clear statement of a position I find almost impossible to relate to. I'm not sure I can be as lucid as Mithaldu, but I'll try to put it two ways: 1) The notion that one is "doing something wrong" by not being able or willing to enforce a strict separation between work and one's private life seems almost sociopathic. When one sells one's labour his mind and emotions are - like it or not - part of…

In both my office and self-employed work regular short breaks for various purposes are part of the norm. (Particularly in places with high percentage of smokers.) This may include short chats or phone calls outside of work purposes as well, but those are not done on work hardware, optimally, though in emergencies that's fine too, as long as they're kept appropiately short.

Note that upwork isn't running a continuous stream, but only taking screenshots every 10 minutes.

Post reply on HN