I was wondering something along these lines, which is why I asked above for opinions, and what I'm seeing is this.
On the forums, one or two clients *who are not also freelancers* have a strong negative opinion about the boosting feature; the rare client has a status quo-esque, mild-mannered "why, it's a great feature" type of response; and the rest of the thread gets flooded by freelancers passionately arguing with one another.
But clients (who are not also freelancers)? For the most part they're just...unmoved.
I'll have to go back and doble-check but as far as I could determine, my post, asked directly *to* clients, here on the Clients board, with a clarification at the top that I wished to hear from clients...was not answered by a single client who is not also a freelancer (and only one who is). Which suggests to me that yeah. They really just don't take much notice one way or another whether they know about the boost feature or not. The concern over boosts and the perception of their impact seems to be VERY lopsided, at least if these boards can be any indication (maybe they can't).
From my client end (I'm both on here), boosted proposals don't really mean anything to me except that some people want to be more visible and/or think they have to be more visible, perhaps because they're new or because they're afraid their work won't speak for itself. That itself doesn't bother me. Everyone has to start somewhere.
I don't assume someone spending $9 on connects is more serious about the job. That expenditure could mean anything. The person could be of more comfortable means, for example, and spends that ten times a day six days a week (which doesn't necessarily mean greater talent or a better fit for my project).
And from the other end of things, I don't automatically see desperation in the early birds. There are a gajillion freelancers on Upwork. Some of them are going to be glancing at their feed when I'm posting a tech job or whatever; that's just an odds-are thing.
Boosting just doesn't figure into my choice process, my impression of the freelancer or...anything, really.
Do I know about the boost feature? Yes. But it has so little impact on how and why I choose to hire that it really isn't a consideration when I'm wearing my client hat.
Sample size of one here, hopefully more clients will answer, but very few ever seem to. I just get the feeling boosted proposals don't impact their choices much, either. I guess we'll see. I may be the oddball.
