1) The employer has paid for all necessary hardware
2) If anything goes through third-party services, I can work on the tracked environment in a way that doesn't expose my personal information in any way (e.g. I shouldn't be required to open my e-mail inbox or any other online accound not strictly tied to my employment there)
3) The employer accepts the time wasted on any friction with moving information back and forth (and/or sees to minimize need for that)
If it means running a VM, up any workstation with 16GB RAM.
The only case I would accept something like this is if I was working at eg the NSA, a really high value target for state actors. Then I would get why nobody can be trusted.
As opposed to, say, controling employees bathroom breaks as is routine in retail and industrial jobs in some places. Or prohibiting/preventing unionisation.
I agree that if you are a salaried employee this type of tracking software makes no sense.
There is an old Italian story - I'm sure it's common in other places - about a TV repairman that goes to fix a TV at someone's house. He looks at the TV and tells the owner: "It's going to be 100$ to fix it". The owner agrees. The repairman walks up to the TV, hits it with his fist and the TV starts working again. The owner complains: "What? A 100 bucks to hit the TV with your fist?" and the handyman: "Yeah, because I knew where to hit it!".
The idea is, say that you are a 10X performer: you have two options in front of you. Option one: you charge 1200$ for ten hours of work - this will make clients happy, even if you are only working an hour. Option two: you charge 1200$ for an hour of work: none is going to hire you because there are people that are only charging 120$ an hour.
The funny thing is: even if the math always ends up the same - 1200$ - people will almost always choose the 120$ an hour because in their heads they are getting the best deal.
Back to the topic at hand: if I say that a job is 10 hours at 120$ per hour I don't want to be monitored because trust doesn't enter into it. It's a simple matter of what's the worth of the job. If you don't think the job is worth 1200$ no amount of monitoring will fix it; if you think the job is worth 1200$ then if I do it in two minutes or 10 hours should not be an issue.
The Speed-Cost-Quality triangle is lost in translation the moment the invoice hits the printer.
* Edit 1 - Fixed some spelling.
The solution is to find clients that are prepared to pay for quality + reliable results and to avoid discussing work in terms of hourly rates then?
Upwork sounds like it encourages hourly projects for clients that want the cheapest price. As a freelancer, your goal shouldn't be to win over every client.
These people are often very frustrating to work with.
Its a way to verify your trust, otherwise it just blind trust.
"Oh hey honey, mind if I look at your phone? Oh it's not that I don't trust you, I just need to verify my trust."
eyeroll