> Freelancers' careers live or die based on where future work is coming from. Happy clients are good for repeat business. Happy clients refer other potential clients. Happy clients are good for portfolios or case studies. Smart freelancers are all about keeping their clients happy in the long term. It's just good business.

Not a freelancer, but this is a classic "market for lemons" situation: designing things for the long term takes a significant amount of extra thought and expertise. If two freelancers give two different quotes, one of which has a higher hourly rate and will take a longer time, there are one of two possibilities:

1. The more expensive quote is way overpriced, trying to extract money out of the buyer and possibly double-dip

2. The cheaper one is a low-quality "cowboy" job that's going to cost way more to maintain in the long run

If buyers in general can't tell the difference, then the market will end up pressuring even the high quality people to cut corners and produce "cowboy" jobs. In other words, it may not be 100% the freelancer's fault they're "not interested in the long term unless forced".

So part of the job of a "wrangler" is to understand what's worth investing in and what's not -- to know that it's worth spending double in this particular area because it's a long-term win -- and to be able to evaluate the output of the work, to make sure that what was delivered actually is higher value.