> clearly you did not work with enough clients to understand hourly is painful, invoices never paid in time, and you will get micromanaged very quickly.

As a full-time solo web developer for the last 8 years, I disagree and find your comment distastefully dismissive.

Hourly billing can provide flexibility, transparency and freedom. I have never had a problem getting paid for any of my hourly invoices and I have never had any arguments about my hours.

Different companies, projects and developers have different desires, needs and dynamics.

I totally buy that there are a large number of freelance developers who are billing hourly and would be better off switching to billing daily or weekly.

However, to claim that billing hourly is never the right choice is idiotic and naive. Hourly, daily, weekly and per project billing all have their upsides and downsides and work better in some circumstances than others.

Counterargument: charging per week risks questions about public holidays, long weekends, actual hours worked and so on. Not to say it isn't an appropriate workable arrangement in some cases. FWIW I don't understand why hourly billing risks unpaid invoices any more than weekly. In my experience clients will not pay any kind of invoice without discrimination.