Well, I understand why this is happening, and I also know that you guys must have thought about this a lot before coming with this particular solution.
But my feeling is that a better solution would be to restrict newcomers from spamming proposals, either giving less connects for new accounts and "rising stars" or by setting a rule that allows just one or two proposals every hour.
I get that clients don't enjoy being flooded by proposals, but I see the risk that freelancers may abandon the platform, since you are asking for more money in order to make proposals, but you are not lowering the percentage that you ask after a client payment. In my humble opinion another solution would be to give free conects for freelancers who successfully work with clients, or to lower the taxes from upwork so newcomers don't feel like they are being taxed twice.
Either way, talking about my own experience, I would never work in a platform that asks me to pay before I get my first client. The internet is full of scam, and I just recently started to trust upwork because I got a client, got paid and became convinced that yes, this site works. But if I enter the new site, and I have to pay up for the chance to test the platform, I will not do it.
And I think a lot of people will think the same. That may become a problem in the future, where clients may find that upwork don't have new talents entering the platform, only the same group of freelancers over and over again.
Well, that's just my opinion, based in my lack of experience. I hope everything goes well in the end.
