‘I’ve given up getting paid’: global tech platform accused of exploiting artists

I'm not the target audience but having trouble understanding the message. The conditions seem clear, if your artwork is selected you receive X amount in Y days. The 'spec'/agreement doesn't seem ambiguous. The 'shady platforms' part makes sense, but we only learn that in retrospect, and at best we can do some credibility searches beforehand which is actionable advice.

The last part is 'true value'--that's hard to say for artistic work. Market value is what's transacted and un/fortunately platforms are very efficient in lowering that. So the only advice I can imagine here is find/use a platform that has higher standards and higher returns, if they exist.

For technical work, I have used crowdsourced competitions where only the selected or top 3 submissions that satisfy criteria by a deadline get paid. Being global, I can't really compete on hourly cost with a higher cost of living. I mainly used it as a means to do some hobby work, get some extra cash, and motivation/deadlines to try new things. In that context I had no issues despite not doing much research on platforms other than finding one that had higher priced tasks.