The majority of these comments, particularly at the top are from freelancers who are at that 5% margin. I think it's really important to remember that, yes, that is happening on the top end; their frustration is absolutely valid with Upwork as a corporation taking back an incentive that was meant to inspire longevity (a clearly full-time corporate biased measure for success esp. in reference to freelancers, but we'll get to that) and then taking it back, making money off of people who have worked hard to reach that probably free-er feeling incentive.
What's happening on the low end though doesn't seem to have be addressed by those with contracts at 5%. For those who consistently only work with 20% contracts, (only rarely passing to 10%: 5%? forget it) it's been frustratingly difficult to be able to make any kind of meaningful money. In the creative and assisting sector particularly, jobs that are consistently already undervalued by the clients who need that help, are often one-off jobs or limited positions, where projects might never possibly reach lowering to a 10% rate, let alone 5%. THOSE POSITIONS ARE VALID POSITIONS despite Upwork's active incentivising away from these, and many freelancers make their money exclusively from these kinds of clients & contracts, not clients that last years and years and make over a certain threshold for the job total. The entry level 20% fee has been really debilitating in being able to actually make money working with clients who have these smaller kinds of projects. If the freelancer's price is high enough to actually compensate for Upwork's take in their own finances as well as asking for just a fair actual base working price to begin with, the clients are fewer who can and are willing to actually pay those rates (emblematic of multiple other issues that should be addressed but aren't for this feed), biasing freelancers away from the clients they might want to actually work with and could use their help the most. It's personally enraging every single time I get a check from Upwork and see just how much they took out (while additionally having to calculate how much will need to go to freelance/self-employed taxes, exorbitent rent, utilities, and literally just staying alive in our economic climate) as a creative freelancer that Upwork has claimed that they value, while the company continues to, in practice, undervalue and handicap freelancers who prefer to work with the small-scale clients Upwork loves to advertise as promoting.
While 10% is indeed still too much of a take, I'm concerned that the voices behind the 5% are dominating the conversation in a way that might allow Upwork to continue to ignore a large group of freelancers that work exclusively 20% contracts (the types of projects Upwork often advertises/features) and desperately need MORE change and regulation. The harmful prevelance of massively undervalued posted contracts and the obscenely established minimum pay of only $3.00 an hour (that's without calculating the 20% Upwork Fee taken out after), or the fact that the threshold jumps from $500 to $10,000 to change percentages makes it frankly amazing to me how many comments here are even able to represent the 5% contracts; I honestly always thought that was laughably unreachable with probably corporate/tech-sector exceptions, I can't be the only one, right? While Upwork is spending hard-earned freelancer's money on meaningless email campaigns being sent to literally already working graphic designers with the most generic, formulaic, google-able resume-boosting tips *with the clear goal of pushing short-term freelancers to more long-contract, or now even full-time workers and incentivising them to do this*, they are actively standing on the hands of freelancers who want to work freelance (the original point of Upwork?) not exclusive or inclusive of long term contracts and simply be able to earn a living for themselves.
I want to highlight to Upwork, that while the 5%-10% contract folks are being rightfully angry and loud about it, that for every comment that is posted about their 5% loss, there are countless un-written complaints from freelancers who need even more change and who hate how grateful they are for the decrease from 20% to 10% because it is so obviously at the loss of other freelancers, and thereby my freelance business too. It's just another of the many flags that Upwork is waving about how superficially great they are for freelancers, while not actually making meaningful, actionable change for the better conditions of the freelancer; honestly disappointing given what the platform and freelancing industry as a whole could be.
