Whereas a serious amount of networking locally yielded me a 10% pay increase and a 6 month contract.
I think this is why you get all of this advice saying that these kinds of sites are a race to the bottom and not worth investing too much time into.
It looks like you've submitted a few proposals - unfortunately, half of the jobs stopped before selecting a developer. If we had more posts on the site, getting declined would be more of a numbers game and less noticeable. Still, keep at it - looks like you have two open matches right now!
The good news is that, among people who get selected for jobs, they often get rehired again and again by the same client.
Reminds me of that friends episode when Chandler tries to quit the gym LOL.
The Problem at freelancer.com (currently testing that) is that it is hard to differentiate yourself as a good contractor it seems more like quantity then quality. However isn't that just the result from getting big?
Maybe there is an inherent stochastic process in freelancing platforms that lowers the average rate as more people get on it. So your main challenge should be to avoid that but that seems like a hard problem.
Toptal does screening, which does not scale, Upwork and Freelancer do nothing (or do upselling via courses, bid-boosts, etc.).
I have a moral opposition to Paypal after using it personally, but we are looking at solutions such as Payoneer to expand country support!
It's worth pointing out that you can incorporate in Estonia or the USA (e.g. through Stripe Atlas) to get access to Stripe.
Signing up, to give it a try. I've got a FT day job but have been wanting to try to crack the nut of how to land a contracting position on the side for a while now.