It's amazing, isn't it? These are people who require outside expertise (they're hiring you after all) and yet do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards.

I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?

Regardless, utterly embarrassing on the part of Upwork. Glad they're being called out. I hope the internet has its way with them.

As someone who has worked on oDesk and made good money. You also need to do client filtering.

1. Check their total expense

2. Number of people hired, on hire

3. How much are they paying them

4. Feedback given

All this information is available.

Backwards? That's a bizarre word to use to describe behavior that is NEVER appropriate. Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless?

> I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?

Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "idea guys" and the implied correlation to "abusive people"?

From reading your comment, it sounds like you missed the point completely. This is not a freelancer vs. employer or developer vs. idea guy situation, this is a simple case of narcissist vs. victim.

The situation can be reversed and be just as abusive and horrible.

An outside expert doing everything they can to make an "idea guy" feel small and worthless!

The point is not whether the employer has the right to push around the freelancer, or the respect you think an employer should have when needing outside expertise.

The point is everyone is a human being that deserves to be treated with respect. It is too easy to not consider the other person when working through a platform like Upwork or on the internet at large...This is a cautionary tale about the importance of remembering that there is a human being on the other side of the screen!

He's saying employers should show freelancers respect.

Edit: Just to be clear, I am drawing my assumption from the second part of his post that tries to correlate "idea guys" to "abusive people", almost as if he equates idea guys that try to hire developers as somehow "less than" him.

I used "idea guys" in quotes because I'm referencing a specific type of person who you may not be familiar with, but I'm sure many other people here are, especially in the freelancing world. If you read the post, you can spot the cliche.

Having an idea, no matter how good it is (and believe me when I say I'm not one of those "ideas are worthless" guys) only gets you so far. At some point you need talented, skilled people to help execute on it. And it's far easier for the execution guys to crib an idea than it is for the idea guy to copy the execution skills.

Basically, the "idea guys" like to place themselves at the top of the pyramid, and think everyone else owes them something.

...as opposed to jerks who overvalue their contribution, thinking everyone else owes them something for just coming up with the idea.

In general, I think the bias flows both ways. Some developers think ideas are worthless and that idea guys/business and marketing folks contribution is somehow worth significantly less than a developers contribution. Other "idea guys" think their idea gives them the keys to the kingdom.

You really need both to succeed.

In reality, there are lots of ways for both sides to make significant contributions to bringing ideas to life, outside of writing the actual code or ideation.

It takes a village...

I think we were both coming from opposite perspectives, but share similar views. I was "lashing out" against the guys who undervalue business guy contributions, and you were against the guys who undervalue the developers contribution...

I just heard on a podcast that, "Every Mark Needs their Sheryl"

Almost all freelancers respect their clients, and bend over backwards to please them, even if they don't get the same respect back. A client that understands and respects their freelancers is rare.

Had his comment not stuck in that tell, I would agree with you. But he certainly seems to be implying something more malicious than you noticed.

Nowadays, if I'm contacted by a law firm for work, I look into their reputation very carefully. In my experience, corporate law firms--regardless of size--aren't a big deal compared to some of the high volume personal injury/immigration/divorce/etc. firms. And yes, I realize I'm doing a lot of generalizing here.

In my country, if they'd interfered with existing business relationships causing expected revenues to be lost, they'd made potentially libellous statements that caused a major source of expected future revenues to permanently block access, there was ample written evidence that they did these things deliberately and that actual losses were and would continue to result, and there was ample evidence that the victim had previously been well-regarded and able to command a certain rate for their services, I wouldn't want to be their position, law firm or not. Situations like this are exactly why defamation cases can result in such huge damages being awarded.

The real problem is that there is no efficient system to weed out the crooks. There are no efficient pressure against them. Psychopats are king.

For what little it might be worth, not all legal systems are quite that bad.

The ironic thing is that my experience was nearly 20 years ago. While so much has changed in the last 20 years (in Internet time, that's like 400 years, and I have more RAM in my phone than the Unix server supporting 40 users on serial terminals), some things haven't, especially where humans and the legal profession are concerned.

I don't intend to paint all attorneys with the same brush--I now have good relationships with several attorneys that I use for businesses; I still would seriously question any job working for a legal firm.

This. Totally. Several times, at 3/3 platforms where I've been working (for over two years now). Surprisingly (not), they (the clients) can do this and get away with it any time, but I (the freelancer) can't.

So what is your role in Upwork?

Let me tell you what I have realised...

Do you pay to use Upwork? Not directly (you're not the one fueling the whole thing). Are you paid to use Upwork? No, because the money you get is a counterpart for the work you perform.

So... What is the your role in Upwork? Well, you're the product being sold.

In any case you will always lose. You are not putting money into Upwork, but the client is. And the customer is always right.

Plus, they have recently raised their cut, like a lot.

This is because the Host is the product, while i am their Customer. and Apparently, the Customer is always right.

Really, Upwork will block you only if you have provably scammed your client, or engaged in criminal activity like hacking - they obviously don't want to get into legal fights so they have zero tolerance policy against that, or if they have good reasons to suspect that you drive your clients off the platform, which is also explainable (and after recent reduction of commissions, that is also very stupid to do).

Re: reduction of commissions: obviously you don't try to circumvent Upwork with a new client, because you don't trust him yet and need payment protection which Upwork provides. When you know the client though, you are already past the $10K point earnings with him and your commission lowers to 5%. You don't want to get into trouble and risk losing your primary sales channel over 5%. 'Increasing their cut, like a lot' is a NONSENSE. 20% applies to first $500 only, so it is max $50 increase of commission per client. Is that such a significant figure? That also drew out a lot of spammers. If my sales funnel got widened by 10% (and it definitely did), i'd happily shell out $50 for that. It is optimal if client acquisition cost is over $500 - and in programming, if you can scalably attract clients for $500 a pop you are going to get really rich, quickly. I'd happily pay $1000 a pop to get clients like my average client, if you can get me a couple of those per week.

I thought of and actually suggested Upwork to remove any free contacts per month, so project bid is always paid (even if cheap). For the same reason: it will drive off spammers and simplify sales, and improve client image of the platform (being a customer myself a little, it gets frustrating how much spam you get)

I guess you need to choose your clients carefully, whether you are working remotely or in person, always watch out for red flags and get out of the deal as soon as you see them.

Except he never chose this client. He exchanged a few emails with a potential client, saw a red flag, and then decided not to work with him.

He did exactly what you suggest, and now cannot accept any work through Upwork, has lost all existing work, and will not be paid for already completed work. All from declining one client.

The moment he accepted the username/password he engaged in a transaction - upwork rules or not.

He "should" have had the price and work agreed before accepting anything, and if they sent it unsolicited his immediate reply should have been "you need agree before I touch this".

Not The client eventually gave me login details, alas, still no job.

Then

After 3 weeks of sporadic talks, the client trying to get me to work without actually giving me the job.

->The client was incredibly unprofessional (but not unprofessional enough to be named and shamed I see), but if you are taking login details without a job assignment you are asking for trouble.

1) it may have been unsolicited (you mentioned this), and 2) humans tend to be very "fuzzy". Maybe he should have towed the line, and now he's learned his lesson about why you always cover yourself.

But 99/100 times the human being on the other side just wants to get you the information you need and is just too trusting. We've all had those clients, and it's up to us to be trustworthy and not be the one who teaches that client what can happen if you don't protect yourself [1]

[1] Obviously what I mean by this is that you shouldn't be fucking over your client, educating them is another matter.

in this case, a hundred or so $ to work up a spec, deliver that to the client along with an estimate of the time that should be involved. They can either give it to you, someone else, or abandon it.

This is part of the problem for freelancers who do live in the US/UK. They're expected to work for less than they could charge in person because they're competing internationally with people who live in areas with much lower cost of living..

In addition, as the article mentions, a big problem is the amount of dishonesty. The fact that someone could have their livelihood shut down overnight by one abusive client is ridiculous.

Once you are out there and have your website/blog, anyone can hassle you really, but I agree that Upwork may make it easier.

As for the other point, aren't we in a global economy? When you bring the freelance business to an online marketplace you are competing with the world, there's no way around it. I mean, I buy things from China on ebay because it's cheaper than buying them in a store. I also buy clothes from Zara, H&M, Primark, etc. that are made in Bangladesh by a family earning $1 a day. Remote contracting of people in cheaper countries is inevitable.

I meet clients in-person and focus on quality and consistency. Yeah sure you can save a few thousand by having someone do it on a site like this, but you'll lose many more times that much the first time a deploy gets botched, the site goes down, they can't help you get what you need as opposed to what you asked for, etc.

I stopped trying to beat on price long ago, wasn't worth it, just meant I had to put out lower quality code and slap stuff together sloppily to compete and I didn't like doing that.

...and keep your fingers crossed that the client doesn't leave a negative review for you - or that s/he doesn't do worse, as it happened in the case of the OP.

The NY/SV are expensive, as-in the most expensive places in the world. People there can only be paid the money they are paid because they are in a crazy place. It's understandable that remote work worldwide doesn't match up with that.

Anywhere else is cheaper, the range goes from half to 10x cheaper. So, what country are you from? what's your rate?

The point being. If upwork can only pay enough for the bottom 20% income bracket in the world. It is indeed terribly inappropriate for most of HN readers.

Seems like they deserve it

On the blog post, my 2c (not as a criticism, but as an opinion with 20/20 hindsight).

1. Shadi should have moved away from the client cleanly and quicker. When he heard that they are not going to pay at his rate / "not even our CEO makes that" and as he already had strong indication that it is not working out it would be better to apologize and move on (use "sorry, my rate is fixed" as a perfectly good excuse).

2. Give more time to upwork to investigate. They obviously value clients more than developers, so first reaction is to go with the client in a dispute. Escalating to the people who do not have to follow a standard script can take weeks. By posting "upwork sucks" too early he burned the bridges and made any real investigation highly unlikely.

Anyway, this shows poor crisis and damage control management.