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Comment by krstak | Hacker News Reader

I also had that problem (and still have), but I found my best gig on the UpWork.

UpWork is a race to the bottom, but only if you are unknown and have no reviews. Once you get a reputation, it gets better. It takes a lot of time, and for me, it's still the process. In the beginning, I focused only on getting good reviews without paying attention to the earnings.

I am based in Germany, and as you can guess, the money I earned couldn't even cover the electricity bills. But I got a few good reviews, and suddenly, one great client found me with a lot of work. Not only did he provide me with a lot of work, but he also referred me to other people, and I got more clients.

So, as someone said in the comments "Sometimes its just a matter of being in the right place at the right time or dumb luck."

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I hire regularly on upwork. There are a TON of developers lying about who they are or where they are in the world (I swear, despite the Russian embargo there are a lot of devs from Russia who have found loopholes via Turkey etc). The biggest problem I have is people trying to get a gig then asking to come off upwork. Don’t do this. You’ll get banned. Happened twice this weekend

But do preserve. We would hire at twice the rate when we can for a better more reliable set of reviews.

I don’t think it’s “loopholes via Turkey” but literally Russian people living in Turkey. They’ve moved there in droves since the draft began.

How do they actually catch people and enforce it?I’ve always wondered.

Unless they are asking to go off Upwork right in the Upwork chat tool (which is horrible)

You know why Microsoft Recall scared the shit out of me? It's because of Upwork and their spyware requirement as a condition of getting work. Upwork's spyware closely resembles Recall, what with the periodic screenshots. It also watches your computer's face camera.

Just keep in mind that after all the hard work you’ve done over the years, having good reviews etc. if Upwork (or whatever else platform you’re on) terminates your account—and you have no other income/client acquisition stream—you‘re screwed.

Happened to me years ago. After struggling to get clients on Upwork I finally got gigs and good reviews. Put in a lot of hard work and earned some sort of „trusted freelancer“ badge (don’t know what it was called) that helped me to promote my profile.

I was very happy… only to find out a few days later that Upwork suddenly terminated my account for a (supposed) breach of their rules. They didn’t want to tell me the actual reason but said that I have mentioned „PayPal“ in a message to my clients (and accusing me of wanting to move my clients away from Upwork).

Never did I wanted to do that. I don’t know if I ever mentioned PayPal—and if so then only to talk about payment processor integrations on clients websites.

I messaged back and forth for days with them. In the end it wasn’t worth my energy.

Just be careful and get control of your income streams and diversify as much as possible.

For sure. I think gig apps are good for meeting clients but it’s good business to have them contact you/your business directly in the future

Right place is definitely a factor.

I'm a western expat in an asian developing nation, and so get lumped in with 'compatriots' as far as salary requirements go, but it's actually more expensive to live here than in many western nations once you factor in education, medical, basic western living standards, etc. And of course timezone is a factor, but I'm willing to work nightshift at this point.

Not getting any love from the freelance sites, in fact most proposals are not even read.

Upwork is a disgusting place along with Fiverr, etc. The company itself, the contractors, as well as the freelancers. Everybody is lying, cheating, and scamming.

I know some people make some money there and it might be lucrative if you are located in a developing country. But I wouldn't touch Upwork if you have a tiny bit of self-respect. It is just a race to the bottom there...

All it takes is for one stupid client to post a fake bad review just because of some petty argument. Hopefully, you won’t ever experience that ever but just keep that in mind and thoroughly document everything you do with a client.

Do they require screen monitoring? That seems brutal to me.

Pointless too, I look at memes on my phone anyway.

Any tips for building up an Upwork profile? I've bid on some jobs for what feel like crazy low rates and still not getting any interest.

How hard is it to game the system on Upwork and either buy reviews or have a group of friends hire one another.

Never thought of it before. And before anyone sticks up their nose at me, it’s basically what ever VC does with their portfolio companies.

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