I was already careful about what I applied to. You have to be... Anyone that's truly experienced in their field isn't going to jump on every low-quality post on the site (of which there are countless), or waste time and money applying to things that aren't a good fit.
My guess is this won't affect the more unskilled sets of freelancers that are already just applying to everything, or will only impact countries with poorer economies.
Frankly, it's off-putting. Six connects already caused me pause enough to apply, now eight!? It makes me not really want to apply to anything... you already take 20% of my hard-worked earnings... for what? Now it's more expensive to apply as well. Upwork is practically stealing from freelancers. I mean, taking 20% of all my earnings is hardly a fair referral fee for a marketplace, and things just keep getting worse. On top of that, because it's contract work, the tax rate is higher. Does Upwork even consider that using this site basically means throwing away half of all your money!? If you guys are concerned about your revenues, maybe you should consider that this is only going to push more and more people to contract outside of Upwork. You're actions are pushing more and more people to consider breaking ToS simply to be able to earn a fair income.
And what's worse is there was ZERO communication about this. You just changed all the costs to apply without warning. Wake up, and everything is eight connects. It's like your company mission statement is "to piss off freelancers more than anyone else possibly can."
I really hope someone who works at Upwork sees this... they are alienating their client-base over and over, and at some point, this is going to topple. Given the economy, if one strong competitor gets an injection of funding this year, I can see someone taking a large chunk of Upwork's market share out the gate. People are fed up, and Upwork isn't listening. No company can be successful while ignoring the market.
