Well, first let me say that my experience as someone who has hired on freelancer has been very good. I have found some excellent developers there. But I'll also point out that (1) I spec my projects pretty carefully, almost to the point of 'hell I might as well build it myself'; and (2) I pay. And when the project is harder than I originally thought, I don't say "tough shit you signed a contract dumbass" but rather I pay more. I treat the contractors more or less as contract employees, and myself as a project manager.

Second, as others here have pointed out, there is a whole lotta "I'll just skip the details here" in this story.

But what strikes me most is that here is a guy who is raising a voice in the hacker internet community about a company with the intent of either warning us of a dangerous situation or hoping to get some community pressure on the site to get his money out of them, or perhaps both. I have no problem with either of those things, and actually appreciate the first.

What I do have a problem with is how little effort (apparently) went into the piece. It's like a stream-of-consciousness ramble about the bad things happening to him, including the piece about the issue leading him into depression. It's just not....professional. It makes my spidey sense tingle. I wish him the best but I'm a bit skeptical that we've got a balanced view here, and half of me is thinking that if this is how he approaches things then the complainants may have a point.