Why serious freelances avoid online “marketplaces”
The best freelances are not on Upwork. Or Hopwork. Or Bipwork. Or Bopwork.
There’s a reason you went into business for yourself and it wasn’t to give away your margin, your terms, brand equity, story and client relationship to someone else. If you want to hang around passively waiting for the call so that someone else can decide your worth, get a job already.
But you knew that, so you’ll be as excited as I am by the latest news from the world of joyless commodity “freelancing”. The merged entity Elance-oDesk, the world’s number one place to source generic work for very little, has rebranded as Upwork. The rebadging is tacit admission that there was zero equity worth keeping in either brand. That’s amusing in itself. (more…)