
I think Upwork is a huge waste of time - karimouda
https://medium.com/@karim_ouda/why-i-think-upwork-is-a-huge-waste-of-time-2020-review-7a12f2f01afa
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ageitgey
The poster is 100% correct but kind of missing the point of the platform.
Upwork is essentially a platform for US people to hire cheap, interchangeable
labor in low-wage countries. Anything else that happens on Upwork (like
someone actually making a fair wage) is just a happy accident.

For companies who need a random jobs done like data entry or data cleaning,
it's an amazing service where an army of freelancers will fight over your
meager $200 budget. They put the cheap labor through hell because they know
they can - all in an effort to make the hiring experience better than hiring
local help. The person hiring has 110% of the power. The first clue is that
the hiring person literally gets to spy on your screen 100% of the time which
is insane and not a working condition you should accept form a real job.

If you are a US/UK/other expensive place developer, you should not be using
Upwork to find work unless you literally have no contacts and no experience.
It's the very bottom of the barrel of consulting. You should be building your
own client relationships in your own market. If you can do that, you can
easily earn 5x - 10x what you can earn on a commodity platform like Upwork.
But if you are in the Phillipines and you can make double a local wage helping
someone far away clean up a spreadsheet, that might make more sense.

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irjustin
To be transparent, I have used Upwork in the past and would use it again as a
client.

What he's saying is pretty spot on. ANY market place that's wide spread/large
enough is an efficiency system that goes to fair market value.

Is there a fix that I could provide? No, because what he's complaining about,
someone in India is praising. The Indian designer can get discovered. Pumps
out good, solid work at 94% success and makes way more money than he ever
could staying local to his/her area.

It is outsourcing and the article writer might have more skills, completely
possible, but in a market place that turns skills into commodities you need to
stand out. Relates to the clients better w/ background, stronger portfolio,
bigger named contracts. There are expensive designers on Upwork for sure, and
they deserve it, but they didn't get there out of the gate.

If I had a friend who was a designer in a first world country that asked about
Upwork, I'd say avoid it. Make friends with local companies, upsell into
bigger ones, and shun Upwork.

Your advantage has to be, you can sidestep it.

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loopz
It's sweatshop work in India as well. Many are highly educated and they want
to be hired locally, by international corporations like Oracle, and have a
decent life not phoning Western clients during the night and coding. They'll
complain about russian/Ukrainian and Polish working even cheaper.

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digitalengineer
"Upwork also doesn’t give a shit about how can we charge VAT for our EU
clients — which is a legal requirement for EU based freelancers like me"

If there is ONE THING governments hate it is companies not paying taxes. But
this is a problem for EU clients as well. They need complete invoices too.

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BillyTheKing
I've personally had different experiences on upwork (though I could've just
been lucky) - I was doing backend development jobs for various clients on the
platform, and got 4 decently paid jobs within 2-3 weeks of signing up or so
after which I sought a different opportunity and left. Admittedly, my first
job on it was from a friend who needed some help, so that undoubtedly helped!

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znpy
> Upwork is optimized for Clients and not for Freelancers

Duh? Clients are those who pour money into the platform, hence the
optimization.

I mean, wouldn't you try your best to make your _paying_ customers as happy as
possible/legal ?

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AznHisoka
Just a general question about upwork: do most people find a job by looking at
the jobs posted, then submitting a proposal? Or do they optimize their profile
and hope a client sends them a request?

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karimouda
Mostly the former. However, when you become "Top Rated" you will get many
inbound requests from clients without much effort

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dmessing
I’d be curious if people have tried other platforms.

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robert2020
Are there better platforms to use?

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karimouda
Unfortunately no, and this could be an opportunity for Entrepreneurs out there

