How freelancing websites killed design and developement bussinesses ...

[smartcontracts100]

Have you noticed this days that there are are a lot of freelancing websites begging you to join their site as developer or begging people that need programming / design services to use their websites ( lot's of google ads )

Here is why i don't use freelancing websites as a programmer / designer:

Number 1 Reason :

High Fees ...
Example:
Let's say a client want's me to do a project for 100 usd ,that takes 1-2 days to do
10-20 % out of the 100 usd is lost as commissions
Then paypal or cryto exchange charges another 10% fee + withdraw fee etc
Then after bank wants it's cut also of 1-2%

And after you are left with 68 usd ,now you got to pay the tax man he takes another 10%-30% (depending on your country) out that 68 usd

Now you will be left with around 50 usd

So for 1 -2 day of work you get payed 50 usd

50 usd / 16 hours = 3.125 usd / hour

For european or north american standards  ...3.125 / hour is lower then even a cleaning toilets job salary ...

Number 2 Reason

Asian competition that is willing to accept rates like that

Number 3 Reason

You got to sign up on a lot of freelancing websites ,and to reach the minimum withdraw limit it takes time ...your money is stuck with them for a very very long time

Number 4 Reason
iOs 100 usd fee ,adobe monthly fee ,hosting fees ,annual domain fees,internet bill ,electricity bill and living costs

Number 5 Reason
People wants you to build projects that cost 100k - millions of USD for 100-500 usd ,as they don't understand how hard it is to build them

To build a big project you got to scale up

You start small and if project is successful you scale up and you add new feature .

Some people just want to build something like McDonalds with 100 usd ... that is impossible.

Number 6 reason

Some people think that it easy what we do as developer and A.I. ,blockchain development is a walk in the park ,as this days A.I. ,Quantum computers ,Blockchains are cool

Number 7 reason

Contests
Freelancing websites allow users to create contests for almost anything ...i even seen a contest asking people to build an online casino for 2000 usd  


Number 8 Reason

People want to build projects with the wrong technology / framework

They ask you to build platforms with wordpress or blogs with node.js/react etc ...

Number 9 Reason

People ask you  to manage/webmaster their project ,thinking that they are the only client and that doing webmaster work is included in price of project.

And many more reasons



Programming / Design Business has become a very low pay biz and very stressful ...

[AicecreaME]

I agree.

That's why it's more worthy to accept proper proposal foe this job. For example, if they are really willing to pay then they have to do it in a professional way, like by posting it on social media about the qualifications needed of a programmer they need to build their website and of course the rates must be paid per hour.

In reddit, the lowest rate that I've seen in making a website is $50 per hour, depends on a company I guess.

[mindrust]

It really sucks to lose 50% of your income right away but those websites are only good when you are a newbie worker while getting the hang of how things work in real life or getting to know what clients want or how to deal with them in general.

After you start completing a few jobs successfully, you should look for a more serious job (if that's your thing) or start building up your own network and find customers by your own.

If you can find 2 clients in one month and keep the fees to yourself and you find 5 clients through the freelancing website but lose 40% of your income to the fees, which one would you choose?

I'd say go for those 2 clients that you caught yourself because in the long run you are going to have to build your own network or else you'll work as a slave for that freelancing platform forever.

When you are not able to catch your own fish, you can always go back to the fish store.

You are also bitching about the low rate workers.

The only way to get out of that race to the bottom kind of situation is by increasing your work quality.

When your product is better than anyone else's, then you can set any price you want for your work.

[shield132]

They didn't kill anything, they just improved things. Once upon a time, in one country (Republic of Georgia) you had to pay 50$ for pirated windows installation, then after some years price become 15$. It just takes some clicks to install windows and drivers / needed software and people were charging so much. Average salary in this country is 170$.

Web developers are asking for huge amount of money for tiny html/css edits. Their prices aren't fair and now they blame freelancers from all over the world because Indian guy charges 20$ instead of 600$ and they are bad, ruining their "profitable" business.

[Aveatrex]

Web developers are asking for huge amount of money for tiny html/css edits. Their prices aren't fair and now they blame freelancers from all over the world because Indian guy charges 20$ instead of 600$ and they are bad, ruining their "profitable" business.

Do you ever take into account the cost of living in the respective countries? Web devs living in the US/EU ask for considerable amounts because that's the only way they can live in their society where cost of living is very high, this without taking in account the fact that when a dev charges 600$, he doesn't get 600$ in his pockets, there is taxes and a shitload of other expenses; ofcourse they are going to call devs from countries where cost of living is low "bad" because they are breaking the market by charging peanuts for their service...

[mindrust]

Web developers are asking for huge amount of money for tiny html/css edits. Their prices aren't fair and now they blame freelancers from all over the world because Indian guy charges 20$ instead of 600$ and they are bad, ruining their "profitable" business.

I don't get it.

Are the web devs work for free (like $5-10) or are they making a killing?

Because you all are telling a different story.

If editing a CSS file was that easy without breaking everything, then the client should do it himself/herself.

Those Indians work for dirt cheap for a reason and it is not because their country's economy suck. It is their product that sucks.

Do you ever take into account the cost of living in the respective countries? Web devs living in the US/EU ask for considerable amounts because that's the only way they can live in their society where cost of living is very high, this without taking in account the fact that when a dev charges 600$, he doesn't get 600$ in his pockets, there is taxes and a shitload of other expenses; ofcourse they are going to call devs from countries where cost of living is low "bad" because they are breaking the market by charging peanuts for their service...

If a Euro webdev asks for $600 for completing the same task where the Indian dude charges $20, then either the Euro-dev or the Indian-dev is about to scam the client.

If the Indians are willing to work for free, then maybe It is time to leave that business and move to something else.

[hatshepsut93]

IT sector, especially software development, is booming nearly any country, and there's absolutely no signs of freelancing outspacing it. Just open your local job hunting site and see how many job offers for programmers there is. Freelancers can't develop a big project in short timeframe, and assembling a team of freelancers is just not as efficient as just having a company to work on the product, who already have a well-managed team.

[btc_angela]

But looking at freelance website such as upwork, formerly known as odesk, freelancers are still making good money even if we are in a pandemic. But I would agree that there are nationalities lowering the pay because they want to get the job, but it is a disaster for some company to hire them because the service will be low grade as lousy as well. So if you are a company that are using freelancing websites to look for employee, then hire someone with good history and offer them competitive salaries.

[fiulpro]

See for most of the people websites like this provide them with job opportunities which are very few if we take everything into consideration. You can apply in numerous jobs and you can be overqualified , but the company due to the COVID are hiring person who is okay working with the lowest wage possible. 

This is online jobs that we are talking about but the offline ones are even worse. People are working 9-5 for even 100$.

If someone is available to earn this much online they think it's a blessing , but in reality they are being underpaid but they have nothing to compare it to.

People are desperate and these companies are using that. The upwork is a good option for sure but we need to understand that it's not good for the developing and underdeveloped countries , they are paid 1/2 of even 1/3rd of what they should be paid.

[BrewMaster]

i disagree and i'll give you one reason: they created competition and prevented big corporations from asking for ridiculous amount of money for doing a simple job.
now there are competing developers who are sometimes even more skilled and can do a much better job at a much more reasonable prices. funny enough that forced those big companies to lower their prices to realistic ones too.

now you shouldn't confuse freelancing with some newbies who know very little of some subject like website design trying to get a job and make some money. it is up to you to hire the ones who can do a good job by looking at their skills and checking their history.

[avikz]

I somewhat agree to your points but not entirely. Freelancing websites are actually bringing more opportunities to the freelancers instead of killing it. What killing the market is high competition. If you look 10 years back, there was only a handful of freelancing websites with limited numbers of freelancers available. Nowadays, there are hundreds of them available at any point of time.

As per the rule of economy, the price always starts dropping whenever there is competition. That's exactly what is happening with freelancing economy as well. It worsened when Chinese and Indian people started entering this market, it dropped the price ever further because their cost of living is much cheaper than any western country.

It's all about competition nowadays which is killing the price. Websites are rather helping to bring more jobs to the freelancers. That's from my personal experience but you may have a different experience altogether.

[mindrust]

I somewhat agree to your points but not entirely. Freelancing websites are actually bringing more opportunities to the freelancers instead of killing it. What killing the market is high competition.

As I understood, it is not the competition he is complaining about (at least not completely), It is the fees.

When you do a $100 job and end up with $50 after everybody took their cut, that indeed sucks.

In reality, you got paid $50 for a $100 job.

(As I explained above, if those websites didn't exit, maybe the OP wouldn't have gotten any jobs at all so there is that.)

[Silberman]

It really sucks to lose 50% of your income right away but those websites are only good when you are a newbie worker while getting the hang of how things work in real life or getting to know what clients want or how to deal with them in general.

After you start completing a few jobs successfully, you should look for a more serious job (if that's your thing) or start building up your own network and find customers by your own.

If you can find 2 clients in one month and keep the fees to yourself and you find 5 clients through the freelancing website but lose 40% of your income to the fees, which one would you choose?

I'd say go for those 2 clients that you caught yourself because in the long run you are going to have to build your own network or else you'll work as a slave for that freelancing platform forever.

When you are not able to catch your own fish, you can always go back to the fish store.

You are also bitching about the low rate workers.

The only way to get out of that race to the bottom kind of situation is by increasing your work quality.

When your product is better than anyone else's, then you can set any price you want for your work.

This is the mentality, those places are not really meant to be used for the long term, they are a stepping stone, yes the pay is crap and those that post jobs on those platforms are looking for something to be done at an incredibly cheap price, but that is not the point, the point is to increase your experience and gain a few jobs, that way then when you are trying to get clients on your own you have in your portfolio your previous jobs and those that hired you before can recommend your job, it just the old idea of starting from the bottom of the food chain brought to the 21th century.

[2bfree]

Upwork use to be good but they take 20% and people demand you to just 2 hours of hoops before they will hire you it's horrible. What an abuse. 

Someone needs to make a reasonable platform with 3 to 4% with little waste of time maybe short test project and they like you they give you more not waste 2 hours to give you 40 Euros of work that takes you a day to finish then they want 20 fixes.

[Anyobsss]

Number 2 Reason

Asian competition that is willing to accept rates like that

As a person living in an Asian country, I understand why most freelancer living in Asia accepts low rates. The 50 usd for 2 days work apparently is considered a huge amount. In addition, clients who go for low rates freelancers know that in a low rate work they will get a mediocre product but they are still settling for it because they don't need an expertly made, just a functioning one. Certainly, those clients who wants perfectly made product would for premium freelancers so i don't think you should blame Asians haha.

[milewilda]

Number 2 Reason

Asian competition that is willing to accept rates like that

As a person living in an Asian country, I understand why most freelancer living in Asia accepts low rates. The 50 usd for 2 days work apparently is considered a huge amount. In addition, clients who go for low rates freelancers know that in a low rate work they will get a mediocre product but they are still settling for it because they don't need an expertly made, just a functioning one. Certainly, those clients who wants perfectly made product would for premium freelancers so i don't think you should blame Asians haha.

You can really expect those words from those people who do live on 1st world countries yet we know that living standards is really comparable to theirs which is totally in huge gap. $50 might not really be big for them but
already a good shot for those people who do live on 3rd world countries but you can really expect that the work wont really be the same compared to those who are experienced or veteran ones.This isnt something new
thats why competition is really high and employers do most likely to choose which is the lowest bid but there are still who dont care about being too expensive as long they would able to get an excellent work
from someone who are on expertise.

[Wexnident]

True enough. Most people are ignorant and require the weirdest ideas from developers, they take a look at the best programming language out there and ask to use that to create their system, yet they completely do not understand that what they want is most often not really needed or just makes making it a lot more complicated. It's almost pretty similar to how the artist's side goes on, artists go unpaid mostly because those that hire them to think that they just need a few hours to work on it, so why they should pay them more than $100 per work? It's pretty stupid.

Though I do think that Freelancing websites are actually helpful instead, not killing them. It's probably those that hire freelancers that are making life difficult for most, mostly due to ignorance. Though I do still think and agree that underpaid services are a thing, I don't really know if it regulated the price in the US, but it didn't really help in actually regulating in the Asian side, since most are rather ignorant and just accept businesses as is, and they basically let themselves get taken advantage of.

[shoreno]

was i wrong ?  because i thought that its the freelance sites were got killed by design and development businesss / services . you know business that offers more than one service and are run by more than one people or they have like a team  .

they present them selves well and they look verry professional . its hard to compete on them if your only a single individual that have a limited skill  . to the hirer's , lets support freelance sites sometimes or free lance individuals

[barbara44]

It’s not just something that happens with only being a programmer. I have a friend who works as a freelance writer and they face the worse. Most clients look down on people who are writers, they usually think that writing is a simple job and some of them will tell you to write thousands of words for pennies. Sometimes he wants to quit from these freelance websites , but I advise him to chill and continue till he’s able to develop his own platform.

If you have noticed, most of the clients are making use of these freelance websites and that’s another problem. And like you have said; there are always people especially from Asia that are ready to accept those low rates, and they are a competition. That makes clients feel like they can get high demands for nothing.

Try to be checking out LinkedIn jobs, there are some interesting jobs that are being posted there, and jobs you will get from there will pay more than these freelance websites.

[bits4books]

WELL, let's sort it out

Reason 1

This is too local a problem. In some countries, you can easily register as a private entrepreneur/self-employed and your total tax will be at most 5-6%. The same applies to receiving money from customers - if you can't choose a normal payment service with normal conditions, this is a very private problem.

Reason 2

And also Indian, yeah. I am quite familiar with the market in the EU and neighboring countries, and I can confidently say that local people prefer to hire local / neighbors, rather than turn to Chinese / Indian freelancers - because the reputation for quality of work is ahead of them.

Reason 3

This is a payment for the fact that you work for yourself. If it is so difficult for you to monitor the space in search of orders, hire a Manager for 10-15% of the receipt from each order and forget about this headache. What is the problem?

Reason 4

Again, a local problem, prices are different everywhere. And even if you take America into account, it's not that much money, is it?

Reason 5

So do not take such projects what is the problem? The beauty of freelancing is that you can choose what to work with and your main task is just to sell yourself. Such customers either end up going to the Indians and spit on the quality or understand that they require the impossible and split the entire project into a bunch of small orders, then collecting everything together.

Reason 6

Again, don't take such orders. What does it have to do with the presence of freaks in the camp of customers and the fact that "the freelance market killed everything"? Does the price of $200 for creating a blockchain prevent you from sleeping?

Reason 7

So you are against the usual auction / tender system? This is quite normal-the customer wants to get the best price/quality ratio, and the contractor (you) wants money and knows how much it costs.

Reason 8

Well, there are no comments at all. And people wear the "wrong" clothes and eat the "wrong" food, so what? Yes, even if WID and js.brainfuck are asked to create a project, what do you need, again?

Reason 9

You can simply do not agree or you can name the appropriate price for such requests. Problems?

This is completely normal  phenomenon. The layout of a website or the design of another online store is no longer a super-complex task that requires extra effort. There are a lot of frameworks for which you can build another blog/landing page/showcase in a couple of days, spending more time on adaptability than on development. It is quite expected that the price of a man-hour has become lower in this area - because even a 15-16 student can master angular / react+scss+html and a couple of frameworks like Symphony and already go to work and gain experience. Many processes are already automated - syntax highlighting, tooltips for functions and classes, autocomplete and so on and so forth. Who are you trying to deceive?

The only question I have left is either you are not very knowledgeable in the field or you are spy100 and then there are no more questions.