Upwork has monopoly greed

In the middle of the night, nothing foreshadowed trouble ... But at four in the morning, a letter arrived from the freelance Exchange Upwork with a joyous, bold-faceted message:

The more you work with a client on Upwork, the more you earn from your earnings!

It would seem, it is necessary to rejoice, but if you get a grasp, some details are revealed: Upwork did not reduce the commission, but increased it. If earlier, all contracts were subject to a commission of 10%, now it becomes a step: 20%, 10% and 5% at thresholds of $ 0, $ 500 and $ 10,000.

Letter:

Hi {username},

I’m writing up to a costly update. If you are in the past

If you haven’t been up for that matter. You will pay:
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° 20% for the first $ 500 you bill your client across all contracts
° 10% for total billings with your client between $ 500.01 and $ 10,000
° 5% for total billings that exceed $ 10,000
° For example, if you have $ 600, you’ll be billed at $ 600 and $ 10 and $ 10.

Here is a percentage of what the client is billed:



If you’ve been billed for more than $ 10,000, you’ll pay less than $ 50,000. The new pricing will apply.

This will be a reward for the long-term projects. We realize that there are significant changes.

We’ll follow up on June. In the meantime, visit our website.

Thank you for your business,
Stephane kasriel
CEO, Upwork

Not so long ago, the two main freelance stock exchanges - oDesk and Elance - merged into a single company and later were renamed Upwork. Together with the arrival of the brake site, brake client, idiotic evaluations and other charms, the company began to raise prices: there were restrictions on the answers to contracts, European taxes arose ... customers also complain, they also had something to raise. Now they have decided to hit full on freelancers who carry out small orders.

It is easy to calculate that the "reduction" of the commission becomes profitable if you earn on each client from $ 12,000. How many such? Upwork employees play silent, they say, private information. But we know ...

Lyrical digression: Some time ago, we introduced a low-change system "Job Success Score", hiding customer ratings to the far distance. This is an abstract number that is calculated in an unknown way according to the "constancy" of customers, according to the way contracts are completed, according to their estimates, and to a large extent according to any information inaccessible to freelancers, such as customer answers to the question "Are you going to work with this freelancer?" Moreover, a “bad” answer is considered to be 8 and below with a range from 0 to 10 ... These ratings jump as scalded and generally have little sense: you can have ratings in the troika area and high ratings. Freelancers are offended, but who cares about their opinion?

On the basis of this "Job Success Score" the caste "TOP RATED" was invented - in theory, cool freelancers who know their business. Since the threshold of "success" is considered to be a rating of 90, and my sausage is between 80 and 100, I am constantly thrown and thrown out of this caste, which, of course, speaks of its reliability.

But we digress. One of the criteria for being in the rank of "TOP RATED" is earning ... $ 1000 per year ! That is, Upwork employees looked at the statistics on freelancers and realized that in order for "top rated" freelancers to exist at all, the threshold should be set at $ 1000 per year. Of course, if the commission is reduced, they are interested in the opposite: so that the freelancers who pay them less do not exist, so the threshold is set at $ 10,000 per customer or, to be more precise, $ 12,000 per customer .

Welcome to the world where the main freelance stock exchanges united in a monopoly! After the merger, I have been waiting for this for a long time, but I must say, the increase in income almost twice from scratch is still the height of arrogance, Rockefeller nervously smokes on the sidelines.

The tone of the message is especially charming: they say we have done good to you! Everyone rejoice for half an hour! And this is a great excuse: small contracts are not profitable for them, you see. Well, yes, Java spends much more than $ 10 on electricity when multiplying $ 100 by 0.1.

Perhaps someone will argue that they have regular customers, and they are in profit from the changes. Let's say it doesn’t really affect me because my main income comes from clients who have paid more than $ 500. However, let's not forget that not only programmers work at Upwork, but also translators, for example, and for many of them small orders from non-regular customers are the main bread.

Hundreds of anger are poured on the Upwork forum, but everyone understands that nothing will change. Hints of a change in the payment system slipped in the past, though initially it was about 18%.