Where are Upwork's competitors? Massive opportunity

[Dark Water]

Visiting old.reddit.com/r/upwork/ at any hour on any day and you will see the numerous problems that freelancers are facing on Upwork today:

- Massive cost of doing business: every job costs between $0.50 to $10 to apply to (monetized via Connects), even if it's a fake posting; one screenshot today shows a $3.15 application fee for a job that pays $3 to $4 per hour
- It costs between $5 to $15 in initiation fees for businesses to hire a freelancer
- I post jobs on there but don't necessarily find someone to hire; just the mere act of posting that job makes Upwork between $20 to $100 as dozens of freelancers spend real money to apply to it; there's no refund for them if I remove the post
- 10% pimp fee to Upwork levied on freelancers for all services rendered; or opt-out for the greater sum of $3,500 or 25% of annual salary

Upwork is the absolute pinnacle of 2024 "enshittification", overly monetized by its IPO and only propped up because there's a lack of competition in this space.

In attempting to solve the problems of spam, low quality freelancers, and fake profiles, Upwork has continually raised its rates on all fronts - yet the problem has not gone away.

Is it possible to build a generalized better platform that better serves both freelancers and businesses? Or does one need either need to seriously niche down or does the recruiting space / temp agency solution better fill this niche?

Curious to start a discussion on people's thoughts; by all means, individuals can still be highly successful on the platform, and it's still a great way to find clients. But this is more of a macro discussion on the platform itself and trending changes over the last 3 years.

 

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[Bounce Back]

Age old two-sided marketplace dilemma - it cost a ton in marketing and years of basically no profit often to start these things. Eventually owners want to reap a bit.

So you could start it if you can bleed for a long time I suppose. Same thing like nothing is stopping someone from making another ebay - the tech isn't that complex (well at scale it is but that's a problem for another day) - but good luck getting sellers to waste their time listing there or get consumer habits changed for them to shop there.

 

[The-J]

Upwork bought them lol

 

[Pawan_Rathore]

Is it possible to build a generalized better platform that better serves both freelancers and businesses?

probably yess... Its a long game only possible if there are is no lack of money for marketing, have enough time to create from scratch and highly skilled tech guys...

 

[Jobless]

I see competitors. Usually they start with a regional or niche focus, as it's super hard to start a global marketplace out of thin air. Or they go for a more hands-on approach, like an agency.

I had the same thought as you recently, that the platform Upwork is absolute crap. This at least has been my experience with it as a client. It's so bad I deleted my account. My issue is not with the fees, but the website, the customer service and payment options. I'd gladly pay 10, 20 or even 30% fees. I am saving more than that by outsourcing to specialists. Often you get what you pay for.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

I personally heavily rely on Fiverr.

But there's also Freelancer.com and Guru.

 

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