Why you should never use Upwork - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@AdShadlabs/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-5c62848bdf46#.1n597kqcn <comment><USER6> I once interviewed for Upwork pro. They sent me an Xcode project and I had to make some changes to it.

However, the required changes referenced features and files which weren't in the project and made absolutely no sense.

Even worse, the project they sent me was the "Photomania" project from Stanford's CS193p class: [http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi- bin/drupal/node/289](http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi- bin/drupal/node/289)

But the copyright information (Copyright by Stanford University) has been ripped off from all the files and replaced with "Copyright (c) 2015 Upwork". No reference to stanford CS or anything like that, just copy and paste.

Which is very wrong in my book.

I wrote them a message and after some fruitless exchanges with 4 or 5 different support people, I've decided to just let it go.

The incompetence of the interview assignment, coupled with robotic support answers quickly convinced me not to waste any more time with this bunch.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like what'd you expect from Upwork clients

<comment><USER8> It is not Upwork clients he is talking about, it is Upwork themselves ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Totally agree with the article, and I am more than certain that such acts and extortionate behaviour are widespread on the platform.

It seems it is part of their business model to allow clients in developed countries to find people in developing countries (all with weak legal systems and corruption) to commit illegal acts (both violations of public and private law). Just look at how many jobs involve rewriting, scraping, penetration testing (really a guise for hacking others sites) modifying existing copyrighted content to circumvent laws.

Upwork as middleman profits -- and takes a blind eye to all this corruption - since cross border police investigations are so difficult to manage when dealing with corrupt countries.

In my case, I had my competitors procuring hackers off Upwork to take down my site. We found out because one person who was contacted on Upwork to bring my site down actually contacted me via my site and provided screenshots and other evidence. There was literally a job posted requesting contractors to take my site down.

We raised this with Upwork. They did nothing.

Guess what they said?

Their customer support asked if I had proof that my site had been hacked by the specific person who posted the job on Upwork and that if had suffered financial loss as a result of the hacking! It wasn't merely enough for their client to procure contractors on the platform to commit an illegal act. They wanted proof that I suffered financial loss!!

However, I can say that we are considering a civil suit against them. It would be interesting to see how this impacts their brand.

Note: Please forgive the messy and unstructured writing. I've been writing it while walking the streets of Central London shopping for X-mas gifts.

<comment><AUTHOR> The worst thing about what you wrote is, as I was reading it, not a trace of shock or surprise passed through me.

It's like it's just now the norm for these things to happen.

If you'd like to, i'd be happy to post your story in an edit below mine. I know this isn't the first time it's happened.

If you want to contact me, it's shad @ the domain in my twitter bio.

Good luck!

<comment><USER10> You want to add you contact info to your HN bio. I thought you did a reasonable writeup and would consider contracting with you for this sort of work. I will avoid Upwork based on their appalling behavior here and lack of willingness to engage and accept their mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FROM THE AUTHOR, PLEASE READ:

Apologies for the capitals, ladies and gentlemen. Please can I remind all of you to be Civil.

I've just received an email from the man himself, suggesting that I'm getting people to give his FB page 1* reviews and to spam his email. He's threatened (implied) legal action directly against me.

Publicly let me say, for the record (Hopefully it doesn't get wiped), that I do not encourage any of the aforementioned behavior, nor do I condone it.

He's currently posting on reddit and generally acting like a massive douche over email to me, still. After all of this. So the above was quite hard for me to write, but remember there may well be a lot of people working at said company, that have families and lives beyond this.

So please refrain yourselves.

Appreciate all of the support and input, from everyone.

<comment><USER11> I don't facebook so don't worry about me. But looks like the douchebag still hasn't learned his lesson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the worst part about this is that I wasn't even surprised throughout the entire story. Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's the reason I gave up on working on platforms like Upwork and Freelancer almost immediately.

Building a personal network is way easier to find contract work and you'll make more money in the end while creating real relationships that will help you foster your career.

I'm sorry this happened to you, and I'm super glad you revealed this persons name publicly. Good form.

<comment><USER13> Aren't people on this thread being too harsh on Upwork? I agree that there are problems with the way it works, but nothing is ever perfect. I happen to be from a country with a lower cost of living than US/UK and Upwork allows me to do remote freelancing and charge more than I would be able to charge for work in person. Also, the world is full of clients that won't pay for your work after you deliver it. I don't know exactly how helpful Upwork can be in such cases, but I bet it is better than if I was alone trying to contact a non- paying client 8000km away.

I guess you need to choose your clients carefully, whether you are working remotely or in person, always watch out for red flags and get out of the deal as soon as you see them.

<comment><USER14> >I happen to be from a country with a lower cost of living than US/UK and Upwork allows me to do remote freelancing and charge more than I would be able to charge for work in person.

This is part of the problem for freelancers who do live in the US/UK. They're expected to work for less than they could charge in person because they're competing internationally with people who live in areas with much lower cost of living..

In addition, as the article mentions, a big problem is the amount of dishonesty. The fact that someone could have their livelihood shut down overnight by one abusive client is ridiculous.

<comment><USER13> > In addition, as the article mentions, a big problem is the amount of > dishonesty. The fact that someone could have their livelihood shut down > overnight by one abusive client is ridiculous.

Once you are out there and have your website/blog, anyone can hassle you really, but I agree that Upwork may make it easier.

As for the other point, aren't we in a global economy? When you bring the freelance business to an online marketplace you are competing with the world, there's no way around it. I mean, I buy things from China on ebay because it's cheaper than buying them in a store. I also buy clothes from Zara, H&M, Primark, etc. that are made in Bangladesh by a family earning $1 a day. Remote contracting of people in cheaper countries is inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the Upwork FAQ: "You'll need to download and use the Upwork Team App—this tool includes the Work Diary, which ensures you are guaranteed payment. By taking work-in-progress screenshots every 10 minutes, it provides proof to your clients that you are hard at work."

Screenshots every 10 minutes? You mean... screenshots of MY SCREEN every 10 minutes? That was what made me close their website and totally forget it until I've seen this submission on HN today.

<comment><USER16> I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why:

If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras or other employees that may be around. In the case of open plan offices or offices separated with glass walls, usually straight across the entire office. When i'm in the office i'm supposed to be working, and the machine is supposed to be used for work purposes. Not for entertainment or other personal things.

Similarly, when i am billing hours in the upwork client, i am supposed to be working, not playing around. So the machine does not have private things running on it at the time i am working. The things on screen are work-related and ok to be seen by my clients.

In my view, using my past work experiences as a guide line, same as in the office, if there are things in the screen that i would not want the client to see (or my coworkers/bosses in the office to see) it means that i am doing something wrong and not separating work/private properly.

Mind, if it does happen, it is easy to delete the screenshot even before it is sent on the wire, though that forfeits 10 minutes of billing, which as explained above, is to me exactly as it should be, since i was doing private things on client time.

So i don't see it as an undue burden. It just ensures that i am actually doing what the agreement between the two of us says i should be doing.

And this has a vital advantage to me:

The client can simply look and quickly see that i was working actively on his work, and i don't need to field questions like "This is taking a long time, are you slacking off?", which i then have to answer with "this particular bit is hard and complicated, just trust me on this".

<comment> brian-armstrong What if you accidentally revealed a private key on the screen during the screenshot? Are you willing to forfeit 10 minutes of time to keep your SSH or whatever else uncompromised? Or are you going to trust Upwork and your client to not somehow leak it, even accidentally?

<comment><USER16> I delete the segment and enter manual time with an explanation of why i did that. Manual time isn't protected by oDesk in disputes, but in that situation it's fine to use and low risk.

<comment> brian-armstrong That's fair. What if you didn't notice that it happened?

It seems like dealing with checking for sensitive onscreen information every 10 minutes could be kind of flow-destroying.

<comment><USER16> There's a fairly noticable popup, that you can also configure to make a sound; and if you're really worried you can review the screenshots in your work diary at the end of the day.

<comment><USER17> As far as I know all screenshots are available for clients right away.

<comment><USER18> I believe it gives you something like 10 seconds to click "delete" before it uploads it, but even then you can click the screenshot from the Upwork client and it'll take you to the work schedule where you can then delete it (removing the time worked / money paid for those 10 minutes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's the link to close your account if anyone is interested:

[https://www.upwork.com/UserSettings/profile/close- account](https://www.upwork.com/UserSettings/profile/close-account)

<comment><USER20> Done. Thanks for posting. Can't believe this guy's experience. I used UpWork for a few gigs earlier this year but stopped browsing for gigs when the new fee structure was implemented. This is enough for me to say no thanks to ever using it again.

<comment><USER21> even funnier is that link doesn't take me to anything resembling a page where I can close my account. Almost like they don't want me to or something.

Literally no button or link anywhere within the profile settings that I can see obviously leads to closing my account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Absolutely disgusting behavior by Kevin. I'm kinda hoping that it's just incompetence at UpWork that caused this, and not that Kevin actually knows someone at UpWork, but in all cases that's why I stopped freelancing through UpWork and similar, and started building a solid client base which know that I'm always there to help, for the right price of course. Plus I write somewhat technical and topical blog posts about the technologies I work with (mainly video encoding, processing, P2P CDNs, etc.) and that seems to pull clients in easier than it would be using UpWork.

<comment><USER23> Absolutely disgusting behavior by Kevin. But thats par for the course - <USER2> people are pathetic.

More interesting, is the behaviour of Upwork. With such a clear trail of abusive behaviour from the said "Client", Upwork still decides to terminate the guy's account. If you use Upwork, you are a sharecropper. And the landlords are capricious and have no loyalty to the replaceable tenants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some new developments (in comments of the original post)

Rich Pearson

1 hr ago

Shadi, I work at Upwork and your post about your experience makes us feel terrible. We've reopened your case and are investigating it much more thoroughly. We hope to have a response to you quickly — if you have any questions or want to provide more details, please email me at rpearson(at)upwork.com. We care very much about our freelancer community and want to make this right. Rich

1 response

Shadi Al'lababidi

16 mins ago

Rich, it shouldn't take a post like this for you (Upwork) to give someone special treatment. I know there are thousands of others like me that rely on your platform (most, far more than myself, for much larger %'s of their income). In some cases this can very literally mean the difference between putting food on the table and not. They may not be able to spread the message like I, or speak English in such a manner. They may not be able to drum up enough attention, so they go unnoticed. It's no skin of Upwork's back, until it turns into a PR mess. Hence why you're commenting. Let's cut the shit, Rich. I've got 2 tickets open and have been messaging everyday for the last 11 days. Nothing, nada. Just, 'We've banned you and you can't know why'. (For those reading this, yes, they do say you cannot know why.So as to not to let on to why they ban you). I've tweeted at you, nothing. Now, I have roughly 75% of a months worth of Upwork money stuck on there. If I were someone else, or someone without other income streams, what would I do? What could I possibly tell my incumbent clients? Shit, what am I even going to tell my incumbent clients? you've just left me without a months worth of wages and a big 'fuck you, there's nothing you can do.' So, I do not want any special treatment. I will not contact you via email. This is an integral problem with Upwork itself and I will highlight it as much as I possibly can, even if that means losing the money and my reputation on there that I've been building up over the last year. And please Rich, I'm a bloody marketer for Christ's sake. Don't come at me with that standard company mumbo jumbo 'it makes us feel terrible'. You're just being patronising.

</comment><comment><USER25> Looking at some of their responses to reviews on Facebook ([https://www.facebook.com/wiperecord/reviews/](https://www.facebook.com/wiperecord/reviews/)) it would appear the attitude is part of their company culture. Amazing, for a company that bills itself as trying to help people overcome their past, it appears they are simply in the business of taking advantage of a vulnerable group.

<comment><USER26> Also, if Kevin is an attorney, he's remarkably free with what is arguably libelous speech to third parties.

<comment><USER27> I am a lawyer/coder and "legal tech" is the festering ghetto of my profession. The people who peddle technology solutions to lawyers (or worse, to clients) are usually one step below car salespeople. Try popping your head in to a legal tech conference sometime if you doubt me. It's almost all e-discovery shills talking shite about AI. There are a few exceptions, but not many.

<comment><USER28> So - I have to ask (as a Graduate AI student, but no specific familiarity with the e-discovery domain) why is this the reputation? Like the applications don't work well? The salesmen don't know what they are peddling? I guess basically - could you extrapolate a little more on this group?

<comment><USER27> Someone else said it: lawyers are the worst clients, especially law firms. Too many know-it-alls who think the world should bend to their will. When I left my big law firm, there was a partner down the hall who made his secretary print his emails every morning and dictated his responses to her. Try dragging him into the 21st century and you'll see what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Long time user of Elance and then Upwork here. I can attest, what occurred in this story is common.

The problem that Upwork doesn't realize is that without an active and happy freelancing demographic, clients will go elsewhere. Historically, Upwork has made it a priority of catering to the client. This is evident given their JSS. For those of you who are not familiar with JSS, it is a score that companies / clients use to hire freelancers. Now, one would assume the score is based on past work with clients. This is not all the score accounts for. Timeliness is responding to invites, the number of long-term clients you maintain, the number of clients you hassle (yes, Upwork actively goes out and tells it's freelancers to hassle their clients to leave them feedback - <USER3> responsibility falls on the freelancer and only the freelancer), etc.

Thus, when clients don't leave feedback (for whatever reason), you are dinged. Upwork won't tell you by how much exactly so let me give you an example.

12 months ago, my score was 92% (Top Rated). A client hired me. We went over the terms of the contract (# of revisions, not working on the weekends, etc.). 2 weeks into the project, the client started to deviate from the terms of the contract. I let them know and they began to get pissy. This happens all the time as Upwork has created a platform where the clients hold all of the power, and they know this.

A week later the contract wrapped up, and I managed to make the client happy as they left me a 4.7/5 on my profile and a positive review. Clients are able to leave private feedback the freelancer can never see. When the JSS score updated (every two weeks I believe-mind you, I had not worked any other jobs since that job) my score went from 92% to 71%! A 21% drop.

Suffice to say, for the past 12 months, dozens and dozens of clients later (most with positive reviews); I am now only sitting in the low 80's for my JSS.

In conclusion, Upwork is the worst example of an online marketplace for freelancers who have a backbone and are not afraid to tell a client how it is. After all, we are hired for our expertise and when a client proceeds to tell us how to do our job, it poisons the freelancing community.

edit: spelling errors.

<comment><USER30> We had a similar incident with a freelancer recently. We left them a 5 star review, a nice written review, marked the job as successfully completed, and left no private feedback.

They wrote us immediately after we reviewed them to tell us their score had gone down from our review and we must have done something wrong.

I asked them to send back to us; nothing in there I could see to fix. I asked them to escalate to UpWork; UpWork support gave a non-answer. So I escalated it myself.

The reply I got from UpWork was essentially this: we're happy to see your concern for your freelancer. You gave your freelancer a 5-star review, you marked the job successful, it's a perfect review. The way UpWork gauges freelancer scores is on a rolling #-of-month period. Past a certain number of months, older reviews stop counting toward a freelancer's score and only reviews within that #-of-month period count. So a declining rating is most likely due to older good reviews aging out of the scoring.

So this could be another possibility, if you have better older reviews dropping off the chart and a few more recent reviews that weren't as good, and now are weighing more heavily without the better older ones to offset them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Apropos nothing:

"$100 an hour is more than our CEO makes so I'm not sure we can budget $1500 for this".

Don't bill hourly! I know this sounds like a very silly example (it's not even logically coherent) but reasoning like this gets deployed _all the time_ , even with sophisticated clients. People have anchoring price points for hourly rates that they don't have for other billing structures. Fixing this to make more money is literally as simple as "switch to daily billing".

<comment><USER32> Just thinking out loud here (haven't tried this) but maybe a better approach would be to not mention time. Simply ask for project specs and break it down into priced components if need be.

$1500 at $100 an hour sounds expensive if you're comparing to the CEO's salary. But $1500 for a piece of sales lead infrastructure that has to be built but can't be off the shelf bought. That sounds reasonable.

<comment><USER31> Heading off the objections you'll get to this: the downside to fixed-price billing is that it maximally exposes the worker both to errors in their own estimation and also to errors in specifications provided by client, and to scope changes. Fixed-price bidding forces the consultant to shoulder a lot of risk.

That's fine, if you're sophisticated. Certainly I think fixed-price bids are smarter than hourly billing. In a fixed-price bid, you get to describe the business impact of what you're doing, which can be huge even if the task is relatively simple, and then put a dollar figure next to that impact. Almost any number you come up with is going to at least sound sane in that context. It's the more favorable setting in which to present the comparison of value and price.

What I like better though is the hybrid approach. I still remember someone on HN saying that this was the first original approach they had heard to pricing consulting work --- which blew my mind, since it was simply the way I was taught by my partners to bid projects, and presumably the way they were taught as well.

The approach is this:

Come up with a fixed price for the work you want to do, and simultaneously an estimate of the number of days you believe that work will take. You can divide the former by the latter to arrive at a daily rate. In your bid, focus on the total price of the engagement, but "show your work" in terms of the number of billable days and your day rate. Include a clause stating that overages will be billed at that daily rate as well.

To most clients, this is the moral equivalent of a fixed-price bid, and they'll treat it like one. But it de-risks the project for you.

As you do more projects, you'll get a better sense of what your real daily rate is (it's higher than you think it is now). You can tune your bids so that you keep a fixed daily rate but still value-price your engagements. By the time you're routinely employing this kind of finesse, you'll have enough traction to easily figure these kinds of things out for yourself.

<comment><USER33> This is definitely a way better approach than hourly billing, for sure.

On the flipside, stating daily billing is not much different than hourly since the client will just divide by 8 (usually). I stated my daily rate after hearing it from you and Patrick and Brennan Dunn, and one client just said - ok so your rate is "$xxx" per hour?"

My point is that daily billing is an improvement over hourly, and with your approach of an overall fixed price and also daily that's a great approach, but the client still knows a daily rate is essentially hourly. A better approach is retainer pricing if not a fixed one-time project!

<comment><USER31> Even if your client does the division --- and many won't, because, remember, it's usually not their money they're spending, so what really matters is whether the number you presented fits into the abstraction of their budget --- if you're going to negotiate, you're better off negotiating in a frame where a $100 difference is insignificant to your outcome than one in which a $100 difference is devastating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think that the freelance marketplace is not good for the freelance economy as a whole. A lot of the time, it creates a race to the bottom as far as pricing, and you have to compete with workers overseas undercutting you at every corner.

When I first got started freelancing, I used eLance (which is now UpWork). I had a similar experience with a client, they suspended my account for 2+ months, and I won the dispute at the end. If I didn't have my own clients outside of eLance, I would have been screwed and not even able to pay my rent. After that, I stopped using the service and haven't looked back 4 years later.

I have a friend who actually does know someone on the executive leadership team at UpWork, I just emailed him with your article - hopefully something positive can come of that. I really hate it when all around bad human beings go around and try to make people's lives harder.

<comment><USER35> I'll slightly disagree with the view about "the race to the bottom".

Most of the market is always in the bottom, whatever the market is. Upwork/elance/whatever just make it stand out.

Most of the work is low paying shit by shit clients who have no clue what they are doing. (Nothing special. It's the same with physical companies to physically work at :D).

As a decent freelancer who wanna do decent work for a decent client, you've gotta filter aggressively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hmmm, interesting:

"Thank you for using Upwork.

At this time we are unable to close your account. Please call our concierge team at 1-866-676-3375, select option 3, and we will help you close your account.

Please note: For security purposes, you will not be able to change your username, or open a new account with the same email address.

If you need help, please contact Support Services."

<comment><USER37> Got the same message but somewhere I read it was due to the fact multiple users where present in my account (long time since I last used it).

I was able to remove the other user (under Settings - Permissions) and, subsequently, close the whole account.

<comment><USER36> No multiple users for me though. Will give it another try later on. I was already fed up with how Upwork works and this article just pushed me over the edge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Shameless plug: I run a new company, CodeGophers, that competes with Upwork. We get a lot of unhappy Upwork customers.

Unlike Upwork our service has a quality guarantee, so clients aren't forced to manage freelancers, and deal with low quality work. It's kind of like a product manager and freelancer combo, and overall it's much easier for the client.

If you're unhappy with Upwork, please give us a shot. You can see our site at [https://codegophers.com](https://codegophers.com), or start a task by writing in at:

        firstname.lastname@example.com

We're able to handle most small tasks in a matter of a few days.

<comment><USER39> I took a look. Main feedback is it's just an info page with email addresses... You need a webapp, a platform, signups, etc., if you want people to consider participating. Something that can be put up in a couple hours does not instill confidence that it's a serious thing. Just my opinion.

<comment><USER38> Thanks for the feedback! We're actually working on a lot of improvements to the site, and we'll be pushing them out within a week or two. Please check back soon :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Damn, that's rough. Hard to believe customer support is this ignorant, but if it really directly comes from the CEO, I doubt they can do anything.

I hope this gets some traction through HN to bring it to the attention of the right people.

I am currently looking for a Freelancing platform and also looked at upwork. Thanks for that, will avoid them!

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean, it's being handled by 3 different customer support staff, so I don't know what that actually entails.

My advice, get a blog. Write about your experience within industry. My best example would be a man called Simo Ahava, whom writes about GTM and GA. Join Slack groups and communities and just network.

I highly doubt he knows the CEO and even if he did, would said CEO actually act on such an inconsequential thing. I mean, imagine the PR meltdown from such an act.

Anyway, time for some tea and a chillout. Have a good Sunday :)

<comment><USER41> OK so I have spent the last month trying to make it on Upwork after seeing some of the "$1000 a month income on my side project!" posts here on HN and decided to start doing some side projects while building a rep on Upwork to try to get some outside clients.

I have had absolutely no success with Upwork at all and had been reaching the point of walking away from it and what should I see but this post.

I want, actually desperately need, to be working outside my day job. I'm out of my element. I realized I had to start a blog and have done so and am writing a series of articles relevant to my knowledge and experience.

Aside from that, how might you recommend I make contacts to have long term work with good clients? Your comment is the first I've ever seen about "join Slack groups" \- where would I go to get started doing that?

A million thanks if you bother to read this, a million more if you reply :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Never, ever give a price break without a scope change. Apart from the obvious $/hr benefits, it's great way to figure out if the person on the other end of the line is an abusive psychopath. A professional will understand that you're trying to help them achieve a realistic value for their budget. A psychopath will take it as a personal affront and become transparently manipulative and/or abusive. This is a great time to cut off contact before it escalates to the level shown here.

<comment><USER43> The real problem is: the conflict resolution process at Upwork is utterly Kafkaesque.

Even if you have a perfect five stars reputation for two years, all it takes is one upset jerk and you are done at Upwork. Eventually you will step on someones having a bad day if you stay there enough.

After you make a good reputation in those market places you can command a higher fee - perhaps they want you out at this point so they can get work for other skilled professionals that are undercharging in order to build reputation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Brave of you to put a write-up ! Fuck you Upwork !!

When I started my consulting company, I decided I will not rely on this Upwork - Freelancer.com shit!

I use various aggregator services -

1.) StackOverFlow Jobs

2.) No Mad Jobs

3.) PDX Startups

4.) Slack Groups

5.) Domino Slack

6.) Meet, demonstrate your services

Everyone can teach WipeRecord service a lesson - I will be giving them 1 Rating on Facebook, Yelp and all other places with a write-up.

<comment><USER45> Actions of one (presumably) manager guy doesn't reflect company as a whole. Yelp/facebook/etc. isn't for rating how company deals with freelancers. Don't be childish.

<comment><USER46> Unfortunately it looks like this Kevin guy is the company director, if you look up his full name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> UpWork is simply a joke now. They were a bit better when they were oDesk, but now the sheer incompetence is hard to understand.

They keep inviting me to jobs that have no relationship to my declared skill- set.

They keep inviting me to apply to jobs for clients who have no intention of actually hiring.

They invite me to apply to work for them, and then fail to show up at the agreed upon interview time, several times

Whenever I reach out to support about an issue, they invariably, without fail, make the issue worse.

I'm seriously thinking of just deleting my account so I can focus my efforts on local freelancing

</comment><comment><USER48> Sorry to hear about this Shadi. Kevin is one hell of a asshole. I try to refrain from using profanity but this man utterly deserved it. Will do my best to let every other freelancer know of this and recommend them to stay away as they can from Upwork.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also tried to refrain, but, as Medium seems to be the only effective medium for myself to vent my frustration, I had to let a couple pop.

Yes, it really is one of those things which you say to yourself 'Oh, it'll never happen to me', then actually it does. I'm the 3rd person I personally know of that's had this happen to them. So I think it's more prolific than it seems.

Hope you're having a good Sunday Erklik

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> What I learned from this is not to ignore the warning signs of a psychopath client. Because you can easily get sucked in to a bad situation regardless of your good intentions, and you can't rely on the marketplace to resolve these disputes in your favor. This scenario can also play out on other freelancing sites, and it can also happen if you solicit clients directly and they turn out to be well-connected.

<comment><USER50> yes, and always stay courteous even when they are total asses

<comment><USER29> I have to disagree. This is not how the business world works. If a client is being an ass, you have the right to fire them. Upwork doesn't afford you this opportunity unless you want to see your JSS drop by dozens of points.

<comment><USER50> yes fire them! just act like it's your fault, not theirs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> A freelance marketplace is very much against the idea of freelancing. You are basically working for the marketplace with little freedom to design the actual work processes your way. Everything is geared towards getting positive reviews and thus getting more work through the marketplace. A vicious, underpaid circle.

Sure it works great for building contacts when you are not really visible yet. After you land a few gigs and have work, references and talent to show for, you should really abandon it asap. Better even, not start with it because the gamified nature will lure you in to do more gigs.

<comment><USER52> > A freelance marketplace is very much against the idea of freelancing.

Exactly. The point of freelancing is working for yourself, not as a vassal of a third party. That is why etymology is important, even when the initial meaning of a word has changed. A "freelance platform" or "marketplace" only makes sense for you as a freelancer if you own it (i.e. your self hosted site, portfolio or blog, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Very sorry to hear it. I've employed many on oDesk then Upwork over the years and almost always have great experiences with freelancers. In a rare case when I did have an issue, customer support wasn't very good from the hiring side either, fyi.

Also I think they shot themselves in the foot with the big price hike. Previously freelancers and I would just keep using their platform throughout working relationships. Now we use it like a dating app, meet a freelancer, work a project or two to build trust, and then leave the platform to handle payments on our own.

<comment><USER54> pay attention, this is against the agreement. you are free after two years from the start of the relationship

just for your info to avoid possible bad things

<comment><USER55> I'm not sure how this agreement could be enforced. How could Upwork possibly find out that a freelancer has made a deal with a customer outside of their site?

<comment><USER54> for example if the freelancer or the client publicly discuss it on HN...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Convinced me, just closed my upwork account.

<comment><USER57> To make it easier for others:

> Click Accounts menu, choose Settings, then Contact Info

You may have to add a missing security question before it shows the form with the "delete my account" link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> As another freelancer who has been there, done that (not quite at Upwork, but at three other platforms namely Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour and Fiverr [yes, Fiverr - and unlikely as it may sound, I found individual clients who placed thousands of dollars worth of work with me there,]) I can only and totally identify + sympathize with the OP here.

Of the three platforms above, I've found PPH to be the best in terms of overall mix/quality of clients as well as the platform's fairness (such as it may be) towards me (the freelancer).

After over two years of doing this almost full time, here is my takeaway:

The platforms have no love lost for the freelancers. Their first and foremost loyalty is (almost exclusively) reserved for the buyers, even to the point of being downright unreasonable in terms of favoring the buyers.

While I've been fortunate enough not to end up with the terminal outcome (yet), I have come close a few times and every time that happens, it is such an emotionally upsetting and disappointing experience that I feel I could write a whole book about it, but then lose the inclination after a while.

Such then, is the state of affairs and I guess there's little anyone (well at least I, at any rate) can do about it.

</comment><comment><USER59> I use Upwork for projects and after reading this I wouldn't mind moving away from them. What are the best alternatives to Upwork for python and data science assistance?

<comment><USER10> I've had good experience with Toptal for high end software contractors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Just so you know, you inadvertently included Kevin's email address in one of the screenshots. You blurred it out from the "from" section, but it's also showing in a "flagged as spam" yellow box. I'm sure this wasn't your intention.

<comment><USER61> His surname is also visible in one of the screencaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Shadi, please also post this on [https://reddit.com/r/freelance](https://reddit.com/r/freelance).

</comment><comment><USER63> Closed my account.

Interestingly there's very few reasons for closing you can select from the closure page. You can't even choose an 'other' category to write in the reason.

<comment><USER20> I noticed that. They should at least add an option that mentions their fee structure changes. I stopped using upwork the day those were announced. This story was enough motivation to officially close my account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> It's so sad to see that.

1\. People that try to hire freelancers don't have the decency of considering that freelances have to pay: fees, taxes and other markups (transfer fees for eg).

2\. The usual you quote me X but my budget is X/2 tops, and the failure to realize that an Z for hour = x, or i can give you z/2 and double the number of hours and still get X.

When an experienced developer in his field gives you a 15 hour quote, it doesn't mean that it's an easy job that can be done by anybody in that time frame, since if that's the case you would have done it yourself already.

</comment><comment><USER11> Even before the threats made to Upwork, I feel the 'client' was trying to trick the freelancer.

\- Snag a freelancer without providing spec up front. \- Once some desperate freelancer signs on, flood the freelancer with tons of work. \- If the freelancer tries to back out, threaten that you will file complaint with Upwork. Since freelancer was desperate enough to sign on, the client probably assumes the freelancer will be desperate enough to suck it and finish the work. \- Repeat. Hence 40 previous jobs.

I think some call this 'client' a shrewd businessman.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think UpWork deserves the negative PR now... They will be more careful from now on..

<comment><USER62> I don't know; they get bad reviews pretty much daily on r/freelance, but who knows; maybe the front page of HN will be more persuasive.

<comment><USER66> Until it mysteriously fell off

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Thank you for sharing your experience, I am closing my account. But do you have any similar (or not) service you recommend me to use ? As a student I work with a company through this platform. Thanks by advance

<comment><USER33> I think going through a more niche platform that has better quality clients and respect for both sides is the way to go.

For example, for WordPress development, Codeable.com is really good - <USER4> take care of both clients and developers

For writing, TextBroker or CopyWriterToday might pay more to writers with a better quality control and escrow system.

Designers - if you can get contracted out by Lightboard or others, you'll do much better

<comment><USER67> It clearly seems better for both sides. Here is a recent thread talking about similar options you gave me [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12775983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12775983)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Nobody else has said it, but I guess I should then...

Does anybody else find it odd that this mans real name is: Shadi Al'lababidi

However, his UpWork profile is: Shadi Paterson

I've seen this done quite a bit when companies (especially the American kind) ship their support overseas, but are either too embarrassed to let their workers use their real names OR justify such actions by saying: "Some Americans will find it difficult to say your name" (or in other implicit scenarios, because your name is Muslim-sounding - or X-sounding - <USER5> associate you with terrorism/other-ism).

Imagine the world we live in, where in order to do a job (or get work), you have to literally change your REAL name to appease to the demographic.

Whether Shadi did this of his own accord or was instructed to by UpWork to 'passively appeal' to the hiring-clients, it is quite a shocker to see it YET AGAIN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey man,

I'm actually English born n' bred. I have Arab roots on my fathers side. My Full name is Shadi Al'lababidi Paterson

I act on my own terms. I just found that when interacting with certain clients (Basically, Americans), my Muslim sounding name definitely reduced my opportunities.

Like, it was truly noticeable.

To be fair, this is the same for East Asians as they seem to value 'White names' more.

I'd like to see Upwork do pornhub like stats on all demographics. Including skin colour and gender. I think as a global society we'd be very surprised to see what a 'True free market' produces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Useful to know, will steer clear of Upwork in future, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you. I just closed my upwork account and I will spread the word.

</comment><comment><USER71> I had similar feelings about Upwork. I am closing my account very soon as well.

</comment><comment><USER72> A major theme of the story is using third parties means you have less control. So why post it on Medium?

</comment><comment><USER73> I am really sorry you are wasting your talent on marketplace like this. Wish I could help you get better work.

Behavior like this, from this dude Kevin, well that is normal on marketplaces like this. If you are experienced, you should always steer clear when you see people talk random stuff.

</comment><comment><USER74> I purchase talent from upWork on occasion. But less and less. On the buy-side I think the personal network works better. And, with so many jerks on the buy- side it scares the talent away. Death Spiral.

Is it possible to have a community like this without the BS? How to stop it?

</comment><comment><USER29> How is this falling off the front page?

<comment><USER75> I really hope there wasn't any manual intervention on a request from Upwork...

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Terrible story, all my support to you. It is completely true that the protection we have is very limited and that we must be VERY VERY selective with clients. Also if this means to reject offers. Also if this means to not earn money. I try to give qualified answers and i ask for qualified customers able to communicate and competent to discuss requirements. Otherwise i let them go away "Too busy on other projects thanks" is my mantra on Upwork It needs discipline and will but to be entangled in a poisonous relation with someone who can harm you… far worse. Push this story around, it is the best vengeance

</comment><comment><USER76> Sorry this happened. Closing my account now -

</comment><comment><USER77> What's the alternative to UpWork for a skilled computer programmer who has fairly good English but has no formal education and lives in a poor country?

<comment><USER78> Make a trip to the nearest capital of a country where there are tech events. Don't forget your business cards. Stay there for a week and come back wit projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Upwork seems to always take sides with the company/client. It is terrible practice and very scary for freelancers that use upwork as primary income generator. I had few challenges with upwork and it took weeks to resolve. Seems as freelancers have to walk on eggshells around upwork support or clients when issues arise. I guess there is a huge opportunity for the next upwork.

</comment><comment><USER80> It's a real shame. I used Elance for around four years (as a client, not a freelancer). This was before Elance merged with Odesk and became upwork.

I'm sure elance had issues. But I noticed a marked uptick in problems when the upwork migration became. The Elance interface was old school, but very functional.

Upwork was confusing. The migration was a mess and made me a freelancer by default, as I had also had a minor freelance profile on elance that I had never used. Took weeks to resolve.

The desktop app....actually, I don't remember the issue, but it led to me leaving the platform entirely. I think messages took ages to load.

I will eventually look for new freelancers, and I'll need to figure out a replacement when I do. It sounds like Upwork is not a great place to be for a freelancer now – and that means the quality ones will be elsewhere.

As a client, I want freelancers to be able to make money, and to denounce bad clients. By catering excessively to clients, Upwork is going to select for toxic clients.

</comment><comment><USER81> Although sites like Upwork make money from both sides (probably more from freelancers), they are likely to support those offering work.

Perhaps their line of thought goes like: Freelancers would always outnumber those offering work. Even if some walk away or are forced out, it doesn't matter as long as we manage to keep those offering work on board.

</comment><comment><USER82> Well, shit.

And I was about to try out some freelance work just to get some income going.

Best of luck. You got a raw deal on that one.

</comment><comment><USER83> Another fine example of when you should ask yourself, "Am I the customer in this deal or am I the raw material that gets rendered into the 'product'?"

With upwork, not only are freelancers raw material, they are so plentiful that waste is free for upwork.

</comment><comment><USER84> The goal here should be to sue, not just making things public. Why don't you get a lawyer the moment your account won't be reopened? Upwork owes you over $1000. A client is seriously trying to harm your public image, which may result in losing customers/business. Both points themselves would be enough to talk to a lawyer. Together they are clear suing material.

If you go public you actually open yourself up to get sued. Also cheaters and bullies will see that you didn't sue and therefore see you as an easy mark. Normal schoolyard logics apply, just that as a grownup you don't hit them in the face but sue.

(I'm not a lawyer)

</comment><comment><USER8> I had a similar experience; used to have 4.8+ rating on Upwork, then accepted a job which went bad largely due to poor and inaccurate spec provided by the client. He actually went to my company website, found out the team members' emails and sent a message to everybody castigating me. I basically begged to him to stop doing any further damage. Upwork always give their clients the benefit of doubt because they know they'll always have a cheap source of freelancers from countries where living cost is low.

</comment><comment><USER85> Back when Elance was a separate site, I created a script to automatically withdraw funds from my Elance account to my bank account. I posted it to their forums and promptly had my account locked "after a routine review". They unlocked it after I jumped through some hoops, but I think the same shoot- first attitude clearly survived the merger with upwork.

</comment><comment><USER86> Yeah this is pretty grim - also shows someones true character when they are willing to act like this from behind the safety of a screen miles away from the person they are interacting with.

Not sure if you have posted on data tau but it might be worth posting there too @shadi....

[http://www.datatau.com/](http://www.datatau.com/)

</comment><comment><USER87> Unfortunately corporate bullying is a new trend seen more and more frequently. We should be very careful in our choice of companies we choose to interact with.

</comment><comment><USER72> Why did he censor Kevin's name in all exchanges except for one? Was that an intentional "slip"? Or was revealing his last name an accident?

<comment><USER88> Probably at the beginning Shadi didn't want to disclose the name, or wasn't sure in himself (possibly because of thinking about the possible legal consequences?), but as he was writing the article he pissed himself off so much, that he decided to disclose it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> All these posts make me think there an amazing opportunity to create a new platform with a big focus on revenue sharing and amazing customer experience.

</comment><comment><USER90> FYI, despite the fact that you attempted to censure the guy's personal info, you managed to leak both his full name and email address.

</comment><comment><USER91> What's interesting about the timing of this story is that I have recently been playing around with Upwork for some freelance work and the issue I am having is actually a different one.

I have come to realize that there is a fundamental problem with the marketplace itself. I don't think it matches clients to freelancers properly.

I did two exercises. I posted a few positions as a 'buyer', and I got a lot of spam (i.e. non-personalized, crap postings to my position/gig/job that was obvious they never read it). I got more than I expected, which makes it difficult to weed through and find a freelancer I want to work with. Granted, I didn't want the typical "low-ball" freelancer. I was looking for a freelancer that knew what they were doing. Alas, I was unsatisfied with the results and ended up not finding what I was looking for.

I also responded to gigs as a Ruby developer. What's remarkable is that it is literally very, very difficult to get any work, much less the type of work I would like (high-value work with a handful of clients, potentially doing on- going work).

I first started off with a relatively high-ish hourly rate for UpWork ($80/hr for someone with 8 years of Ruby & Rails experience and 15+ years of web development experience overall). Because I had no 'history' with the platform, that didn't work. I filled out my portfolio, and responded to each job in a very custom way detailing the specifics of how I would tackle each job I was submitting a proposal to. This took much longer than just spamming, and was more mentally taxing, but I figured I could make up for my non-Upwork-track history by putting more into my proposal. No dice.

I then dropped my rates (down to as low as $40/hr) just to test, still no dice. I didn't even get responses.

Then, I assumed that maybe my proposals weren't robust enough or maybe I wasn't communicating my capabilities in my portfolio properly enough, aka I was being hit with a 'portfolio tax'.

So to get over this, I decided to actually bid on fixed budget tasks that were very specific in what they want and overlapped with specific stuff I have done in the past -- specifically "B2B Lead Discovery" or "Website Scraping" for something.

I recently have been playing around with scraping websites for different types of leads, particularly B2B, and so this suited me perfectly.

I then started applying to some of these with not just the specifics of what I have done, how I would tackle their specific task, but I would even send them sample results for similar leads to what they were asking for. So say someone was looking for wedding planners from each state (an actual job posting) where they would need the $CompanyName, $Website, $Email, $PhoneNumber, $Address. I replied telling them I have experience doing exactly this....in fact, I recently did this exact thing for accountants, so I replied explaining what I have done and how I can help them and I sent them a CSV file with a list of sample accountants, along with a picture of my script producing those results.

In one case, I crawled the specific website they wanted crawled and showed them pictures of the script doing that and then I gave them a suggestion based on what they were looking for and what I found. There was a disconnect between what they wanted, and what could be technically scraped from the website (they wanted email addresses for all users on MySpace to be exact). So I informed them that unless MySpace has an API that gives out this information, and unless you are looking for email addresses that people post within comments on the music throughout the site, this is a waste of time and I provided proof from my script.

Suffice-it-to-say, I did a lot of work on each proposal. I did about 7 - 10 of these specific proposals for scrapers, and about 15 - 20 other specific but not as specific proposals. I also didn't change the price they asked. So if they said their budget was $10, I replied with all of the above with a $10 budget. This is crazy, I know...but I did it just to experiment.

The results? Not even 1 reply. Not even 1. You can see screenshots here [1].

Yes, my portfolio on Upwork could be weak (although I doubt it because I think it looks pretty robust), and my profile could be a deterrent (because the language I use is a mismatch to what these clients are looking for) and my rates could be high relative to the rest of the marketplace, but the real issue is just an overall non-response from ANY of the 20+ proposals I submitted over the period of a week.

Something feels fundamentally broken with that, especially when considering my experience with the other-side of this experience.

I believe that there is some middle ground between the "elitist" Toptal and "broken" UpWork. So, I would like to try an experiment.

Do you have any high value ($30K+ -- note this is a floor, just to weed out inappropriate clients) development projects that you would like done? Either generic projects where no tech stack is specified or Ruby and Rails jobs for starters. I won't specify the types of projects, but something where you would prefer a "high-quality" developer help you see it to fruition rather than the cheapest developer you can find. Perhaps you have tried other developer services/gig boards and are unhappy with the process.

Do you want a product manager to help drive the entire process for you, from beginning to end?

If this sounds interesting to you, please send me an email to: email@example.com.

If I can find a pattern for how to find these types of projects consistently, I would love to work with other developers to fill these needs. Until then though, let the experimentation begin!

[1] - [http://imgur.com/a/MjHYk](http://imgur.com/a/MjHYk)

<comment><USER92> How many jobs completed total do you have? Does not matter if it's $5 or $10 jobs.

<comment><USER91> None...which is the same number as the number of interviews I have gotten.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Thanks, I was hoping to get work at Upwork before, now I'm considering not to. I hope things turn out in favorable for you.

</comment><comment><USER94> So who is going to do a decentralized alternative to Upwork in the spirit of OpenBazaar, ArcadeBNB and ArcadeCity? :}

</comment><comment><USER95> Ugh, what a terrible, terrible client. But I think the title draws the wrong conclusion. I've personally been a client on Upwork over the last year, paying several developers to work on open source software, and all parties have been very happy with the experience. I think one should think about this incident in the broader context:

* It's clear Upwork support screwed this case up. But one should keep in mind that resolving disputes between two people who both complain the other is a criminal (as in this case) is a really hard problem. The US justice system often gets it wrong (something egregiously). While it sucks when it happens, I think one should expect platforms like Upwork to screw up sometimes too.

* Dealing with people trying to cheat is a fact of life in any business. I've heard horror stories in the freelancing world of clients deciding not to pay a freelancer for months or work, freelancers pretending to do work, etc. Often, the wronged party is unable to get the dispute resolved satisfactorily, especially if the two parties are in different countries. Any marketplace the size of Upwork ([https://www.upwork.com/about/](https://www.upwork.com/about/) says $1B in jobs annually) will have a large absolute number of both bad clients and bad freelancers (there are certainly tons of bad bosses and bad employees in America, lots of bad taxi drivers, etc.). At least with a platform like Upwork or Uber, there's a reputation system where bad actors get bad reviews and eventually stop getting matched with other people. I'm willing to bet that this employer is a jerk to the people he hires not on Upwork, too.

* This particular client's behavior is extremely bad in several ways. But at least the client had bad reviews on the platform. Do business with bad people at your peril! They will figure out how to screw you.

* I had thought the "screenshots every 10 minutes" feature of Upwork was just an annoying invasion of privacy, until I had a freelancer report 50 hours of work fraudulently (i.e. he didn't post any work starting ~50 hours before I stopped paying him), make a bunch of increasingly unrealistic excuses that he would post his work soon once he got back from a vacation or whatever, and eventually disappear. After investigating, Upwork banned the freelancer, but their terms of service don't allow them to recover money already paid since we weren't using the screenshots feature. While I was upset and frustrated by it, I've also seen employees in the US stop working and hope to get a month or two of free pay before they get fired, and it's basically the exact same thing. Given the larger picture of Upwork having 3M jobs/year, mostly for relatively small amounts of money, there are probably a lot of disputes, and I think you should expect to have a significant fraction of disputes decided in a way where at least one of the parties leaves the dispute upset because the decision was wrong (the US civil justice system certainly has that property!). And keep in mind: a 5-20% fee on projects with a <$1000 average size doesn't pay for a lot of manual dispute resolution. Things like screenshots of emails can be forged; who knows what other fabricated evidence the client gave to Upwork support to help their side of the case. The screenshot mechanism is Upwork's current best solution for making dispute resolution efficient, and I think it does help: I haven't had fraud issues with those freelancers who are using it (and Upwork's ToS do allow recovering money from people whose screenshots show they weren't working). They address the privacy issues somewhat in that the freelancer can delete any screenshots they like before sharing with the client. They just don't get paid for those 10 minute windows.

OK, that's my little essay on the Upwork experience. Upwork isn't perfect, but no large marketplace is. Keeping bad actors out of a marketplace is a really really hard problem, and I don't think it's possible for them to eliminate bad behavior. Still, I hope they kick that client off the platform and take this incident as a wake up call to invest more in improving their dispute resolution processes.

</comment><comment><USER96> I guess it doesn't help if your name is "Shadi" :)

<comment><USER97> Sadly, that might be the case not because of the pun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Didn't everyone know Upwork was a total POS a decade ago?

</comment><comment><USER99> Anyone has a similar experiences with Crossover company?

</comment><comment><USER100> Sounds like he stumbled upon a subclinical psychopath.

</comment><comment><USER101> > I'm not going to talk about the impossibility of competition they offer due > to being seriously undercut by those that live in countries with lower costs > of living.

As a freelancer/contractor working exclusively for customers that have large budgets and pay a lot I'd advise against ever using such platforms.

You are going to compete with very cheap labour (and often low quality services) and businesses will expect that and pay accordingly.

Even if you have no projects lined up it's better to create your own small service or product which you can use later to advertise effectively what kind of value you could create for prospective customers. (go to local events and get into contact with future customers this way)

It's also interesting to note that Globalisation is so heavily pushed on all levels of our society although we can clearly see that it sucks for the majority living in rich countries.

Most people here probably do recognise (at least subconsciously) that it's impossible for them to compete with persons doing the same job in a third world country, no matter if they do a worse job. They make up for it by offering their services at such a low rate that they offset this easily. (some of them live in countries where you can easily feed, clothe and house a family with $200 a month - it's impossible to compete with that)

You could argue of course that it's great for third world countries (it was) lifting many people out of poverty, but would you want to get poor in the process? (take a look at Detroit, this could be our future)

Google, Apple and other large IT corporations (or really any large corp that needs IT services) of course are interested in lowering the cost of labour for them (which is a legitimate interest for them), so make no mistake, what they try to push politically in this case is certainly not in your interest.

</comment><comment><USER102> I've heard this complaint many times about upwork. They step all over freelancers and you are presumed guilty. Thanks for taking the time to write this up and I hope people will heed your warning.

</comment><comment><USER30> From the employer side. We're a platinum employer on UpWork with probably close to $100,000 spent on the platform and maybe 70 completed jobs. Tons of reviews calling us one of the best employers on UpWork.

Right after oDesk merged with eLance to form UpWork, the platform rolled out its new "job success" score and sidelined star ratings (which was how it'd previously determined employer and contractor quality).

We typically hire multiple contractors to small test jobs, and let them know these are test jobs. We then keep the best one or two on, and the rest we thank for their work, give them a good review (assuming they at least tried), and end the project.

In this case, right after UpWork rolled out its "job success rate" score, we had a few trial freelancers we brought on who simply did not even start their projects or respond to communications. So we ended those jobs and marked them "unsuccessful."

Within maybe a week, I received a "letter from the principal"-type email from UpWork letting me know that we had too many unsuccessful jobs and UpWork would be monitoring our account to make sure we were following sound hiring principles.

I assumed this was probably a situation where we had 3 job success ratings and 2 of them were unsuccessful, or something like this, since they'd just rolled this out. Whereas we had something like 70 five star ratings (and a couple of four star ratings) built up over the years.

I wrote to UpWork asking what this was about, pointing out that we have tons of five star reviews and this job success thing was brand new, and we just got a form letter back saying, in effect, "just be more careful."

So, now, we make every job "successful" when it ends, regardless how it ended, and are very careful to end jobs in a cheerful way with freelancers and tell them, "Okay! Job 5-starred and marked 'successful'!" in hopes they'll be inclined to do the same. It's not about accurate information. It's about not losing access to the platform.

We do hiring on other platforms as well. Guru, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour. Freelancer and PPH are comparable to UpWork in terms of fees (UpWork's a little bit higher). The PPH interface is pretty good; Freelancer's is not as good, and the quality of contractors on Freelancer leaves something to be desired compared to UpWork (though PPH is pretty good here too). Guru has great contractors and its rates are almost half of UpWork's (12.5% instead of 22.5%), but its interface is something out of 2009 and employers aren't even able to end their contracts with freelancers. It's just a downright byzantine system to use.

So, like it or not, we seem stuck with UpWork for now, and UpWork can run a crummier service than it used to in the oDesk days and charge twice as much for it because, well, they're the only game in town, and that's the market economy. We've moved what work we can off it (e.g., we use 99designs for design stuff now, and have found some terrific contractors we've gone back to repeatedly from them), but UpWork's still the best general place.

Maybe someone else will come along with a better service, cheaper. I kind of hoped PPH would be that, but they charge comparable rates, so maybe that's just what the market rate is for the middle man service between employers and freelancers. Wish they'd plow some of the new capital into better tech though. The new site design is worse than what it was before the upgrade, and often gets stuck loading in the browser. Still better than Guru though.

<comment><USER103> Upwork rate is 22.5%? I think when it was Odesk (before merging with Elance) it was 10% - last I checked, some time ago. And when Odesk started it was 30%, IIRC.

<comment><USER24> It's 5%, 10% or 20% depending on the amount spent per contract. They also charge a fee to the employer now for paying by credit card instead of ACH (2.75%)

[https://www.upwork.com/blog/2016/05/upwork- pricing/](https://www.upwork.com/blog/2016/05/upwork-pricing/)

I'm not against the changes overall (in my case, it will mean more money in the pockets of the people I hire) but it seems to bias against contractors who specialize in one-off smaller projects. IMHO anyone with a successful history of doing that type of piecemeal work should still be charged a flat 10%.

<comment><USER103> Good point, there shouldn't be that bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> Sounds terrible. Absolutely disgusting.

Still, Upwork is an excellent mechanism for building professional network with both customers and freelancers and should just be used wisely.

<comment><USER105> I disagree. My conclusion is that Upwork must be avoided at all costs. Anyway discoverability is reached on Github and by blogging in this day and age, Upwork is the remnant of a bygone era IMHO.

<comment><USER104> Such a massive opinion against Upwork makes me also worry. It almost sounds like i have to build other ways of reaching my customers as if too many people feel like this, Upwork may go under.

Sorry you feel so bad guys. I made over a million bucks on Upwork and my customers are happy, many work with me over years, and the only time i got in serious trouble was actually the only time when i tried to trick my customer myself, so i was entirely at fault.</comment></comment></comment>


General Assembly Launches Dash, A Tool For Coding Newbies - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/general-assembly-launches-dash-a-tool-for-coding-newbies/ <comment><USER2> 1\. STOP INVENTING A NEW AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM FROM SCRATCH.

Damn it. I am serious: use Persona. I know at this point people'd say, well, most people are still going to use providers like gmail. Well, it's better to have a single identity than multiple one.

2\. Don't ask people to sign up until you have shown them your features. A demo what it is like to use your service. Like seriously... I consider this whole giant signup button as a crime. You are asking me to provide you my identity and my password and my name before I even had a chance to evaluate your product. If I don't like it that record will sit in your database.

I'd like to see a 2 minute Youtube commerical and/or a bunch of screenshot.

No. This is not how you do business.

<comment><USER3> Here's a youtube demo: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tcMPCcnt8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tcMPCcnt8)

<comment><USER2> then have them put it in the website. Customers shouldn't have to google that at all. But thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know HTML and CSS and tried out the product. I found it so fun I wanted to go through all the lessons, plus I learned some new HTML 5 tricks I had glossed over.

</comment><comment><USER5> Possibly easy to confuse with [http://kapeli.com/dash](http://kapeli.com/dash). I understand this is completely different, but both fall within the category 'programming'. I'm not a Mac user but I'm aware of the older 'Dash'. (Incidentally, is there a similar offering for Linux? Other than installing the offline documentation for each lib, obviously!)

</comment><comment><USER6> Nathan made a great product and worked really hard over the last few months to make it perfect!

</comment><comment><USER7> Learning to code gets more fun, relaxed and personal. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER8> this is surprisingly addictive...wish there was more already!

</comment><comment><USER9> best online programming tool i've seen.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks like a really great tool.</comment>


Voters Backed Donald Trump Because He 'Just Got It,' Says Investor Peter Thiel - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-backed-donald-trump-because-he-just-got-it-says-investor-peter-thiel-1478800508 <comment><USER2> What about asking him about all the "truth-less" stuff his propagandist in chief Bannon out of Breitbart (future Chief of Staff) has pushed for years? The Birther BS? How the extreme supremacist elements backing the campaign will be kept at bay; how basic rights will be maintained.

I guess he figures Palantir can make a bunch of money tracking down people who fit into non-billionaire-white-male (gay or not) categories for [...insert some action....] to "make America great".

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm perplexed as to why Thiel backed Trump when Thiel is gay, and Trump/Pence seem to want to roll back a lot of hard fought rights won by the homosexual community.

<comment><USER4> I won't claim to know why, but when we discriminate in this country, you probably put race at the top. But we discriminate in this order:

      1. Wealth (that is, lack of)
      2. Education
      3. Race
      4. Gender
      5. Other stuff (appearance, sexual identity, etc)

I doubt a successful homosexual like Thiel feels terribly discriminated against. I'm guessing this because I work with a bunch of black physicians; they say they're all doing just fine.

<comment><USER5> I have to disagree with the list. How we discriminate can't be put in a list because it is different for different issues. For one example, consider that the legal system discriminate far more on gender than race. In some areas your list is close to accurate (I would definitely put mental health much higher), but in general a list is a poor data structure to represent how discrimination occurs. It also ignores interactions between groups.

<comment><USER4> That's a fair point, and your remark about mental health is true (it might even be number one on this oversimplified list). I wasn't trying to be authoritative on the subject or list, but to present a general idea about who, practically-speaking, feels disenfranchised. Thiel, even if he was a fat, ugly, uneducated, transgendered black person, would still be one of the most advantaged people in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For everyone suggesting Thiel, a gay man with outspoken libertarian views, donated $1.25m as part of some pay-to-play scheme, let's do a little math...

He is worth $2.7b last I checked.

1250000/2700000000 = 0.00046296296

Suppose someone with a net worth of $1m donated $500... That would be a greater fraction of net worth donated. I know a lot of people who donated above that ratio.

I propose an alternative theory: Thiel is a true believer, much like many of you.

<comment><USER2> Thiel has described himself as a Libertarian, but Palantir is proof that he is in fact an advocate of the surveillance state.

<comment><USER6> I'm far more on your side when it comes to surveillance, but I don't accept "government contracts" as a motivator. I think you're being reductionist and neglecting the fact that technology has a place in stopping terror and crime in general... We just don't know where to draw the line yet.

<comment><USER7> It's like you live in this world where greed for money and power don't exist. What good has Thiel done to be able to bypass all resonable criticism of people in power?

<comment><USER6> It's like you live in this world where the only beliefs that matter are your own and nobody else can believe something contrary and be genuine.

FYI 9/10 top defense manufacturers in the world donated to HRC. What the fuck do you think they expected in return? Peter donated as an individual and defended his stance publicly.

<comment><USER7> I apologize for the tone of my previous comment. It was unnecessarily harsh and confrontational. I have serious doubts about Trump's and Thiel's underlying motives but I shouldn't have insulted you like that. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People voted for Trump for 2 reasons, they were tired of business-as-usual from the out of touch elites and they saw the other candidate(Clinton) as having no redeeming value.

</comment><comment><USER9> _" You may fight ISIS, but if that's the only thing we do, defeating ISIS seems like a manageable goal."_

Oh man. This is the Middle East. You can never just do one thing and imagine it won't affect everything else. "We'll just topple Saddam and that's the only thing we do."

"Manageable goal" will have the same ring as "Mission accomplished" in a couple of years.

It's strange how Thiel is so worried about the bubble economy, yet Trump is the quintessential face of the bubble since early 1980s. Manhattan real estate, casinos, reality TV -- these are all "boom or bust" businesses.

</comment><comment><USER10> don't forget to use the HN "web" link in the second line if you hit the paywall

<comment><USER11> What's the HN web link? I get snagged on this all the time and just search through google to bypass but now I feel like I'm doing something the hard way

<comment><USER12> At right of "X minutes ago". It actually just performs a google search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good read, he appears quite sane. In a nutshell, he has hope we do only know Trump on steroids, and he might not be a likable person, but in the end Trump has the necessary discomfort with the status quo to move the economy ahead - not the perfect candidate, but rather the better alternative at this moment in time.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately Trump's cabinet appointments have already proven him wrong. Carson, Palin, the leading anti-global warming crazy for head of the EPA...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Political polarization has been a topic among moral psychologists like Dr. Jonathan Haidt. I recommend watching this talk to understand the political discourse: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAE- gxKs6gM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAE-gxKs6gM)

</comment><comment><USER16> peter, history is not going to remember you kindly.

<comment><USER17> It might remember little things like this: [http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- alert...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- alert/article112777458.html)

He donated $300k to the "Yes on 64" campaign in California.</comment></comment>


Rules to avoid gratuitous gender profiles of female scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/finkbeiner_test_gender_gap_fem.php

<comment><USER2> "The fact that she's a woman Her husband's job Her child-care arrangements How she nurtures her underlings How she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field How she's such a role model for other women How she's the "first woman to…""

The irony is that the same feminist groups that are fighting for more women in science mention at least half of these in articles about trying to get more women in science.

Why do we have to focus on gender and race. Why can't we just hire the best person for the job?</comment>


Ask HN: Someone released my startup before me - now what? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Folks!
Obviously this is a throw away account - but rest assured I am a regular poster / commentor here.
Like I am sure many of you have experienced already someone beat me to it. I started working on a new startup with some friends a month ago and we were hoping to launch around January / mid February. Its in a relatively untouched area of cloud data (I know everyone is doing something with data in th cloud but believe me this isnt something we found any options for out there yet). All I have been aware of is that 2 companies were working on something similar (one of which got funded recently too). Turns out in the last few weeks one of them launched - and has done a great job it seems with the UI and so on. No idea how they're doing so far in terms of acceptance and conversion and so on - but it certainly looks great - and feature overlap beween our products is pretty huge.
I dont know what to do now - on the one hand we have only a months effort behind us - and it wouldn't be too much to loose to go do something different now. But I do believe in our product and since the market is relatively untouched I dont think that it needs to be a monopoly. On the other hand I also believe that coming first isnt always the best way to win - but being better is. However considering we are far behind the competition at the moment - I really wonder if it would be a good idea to get in here or not.
I would really appreciate and advice or experiences that fellow HN'ers have made in such situations - especially success stories.
What would you do in my position?
Thanks!! <comment><USER2> I like the other posts. Another thing you could do is break the market down even further. Find a niche that the other companies aren't serving. Serve that customer better than anyone. Then when you "win" the majority market share for that niche you can expand (a la crossing the chasm).

You might also go all out lean on these mo fos and put up a landing page, then start reaching out to customers and have one on one conversations to see if anyone will even buy your product. There's nothing like a real life customer willing to buy your product to get you back in the right mindset.

<comment><USER3> Exactly; it's not so much about building a "better" product so much as being able to find a key differentiator (though to be fair, overall quality WOULD be a strong one).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it really is a good idea, then you're going to be launching in a crowd and "first" might not mean that much(1).

The question you'll want to ask is "can we do this better than _everyone_ else who has launched or will launch right after us?" If you're not _sure_ you're going to be the best, don't bother. It won't matter if you're first, third, or seventeenth to launch if what you launch is second best.

(1) You might not want to show up a year late though!

</comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't matter when you get there (well, unless you're so late that the market is flooded and it's impossible to get your name out there). If you were to be first to launch, they'd come after you with overlapping features. Then what? And what about another company that comes to try to take advantage of the same space? And another after that...

If it truly is a good market, it will be crowded soon. As long as you aren't entering a crowded market (and one competitor is not crowded) than I'd go for it. This assumes you can do a better job than the competitor and have something to differentiate yourself with. If you are truly overlapping than pivot. Hell, even a change in your marketing strategy alone could be tremendous. Just differentiate through the way you position and brand your product.

You do have only a months work into this, so feel free to abandon it. However, if you get into the habit of abandoning anything where you're not first to the market... I can only assume you'll never go towards anything because, let's face it, what are the odds you'll ever be first in something entirely new? Very slim.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think it's too be an issue. You now have a chance to look at what solutions the competition has thought of and now you can incorporate and improve on some of their better features. Also if your products are very similar, as you say, it will probably fall mainly on your marketing to who is more successful in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree with most everyone on here and want to add two more points:

\- google was not the 1st search engine \- intuit was the 40th company into the small business space

Look at them now.

Evaluate. Test. Learn.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would see this as validation and simply carry on while learning from their mistakes. Also the day you launch you'd be exposing yourself and the idea greatly, so a month before or after means nothing.

</comment><comment><USER9>
        I returned, and saw under the sun,
        that the race is not to the swift,
        nor the battle to the strong,
        neither yet bread to the wise,
        nor yet riches to men of understanding,
        nor yet favor to men of skill;
        but time and chance happens to them all.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would assess the strength and execution of your competitor's product, then decide whether you think you can build a better product. Google didn't quit building a search engine because Yahoo beat them to it. They just figured out a better way to do it. Depending on the potential size of your market, there may be room for multiple companies, even if you do come to market second.

On the other hand, one month's work is not very much and if you have another great idea in a more promising market, I would say get working on that and try to make sure you get there first. But, like I said, it's not when you launch, it's how your product compares with competitors. Just my $0.02.

<comment><USER11> The surest road to "better" is often simply to optimize for a different segment of the market.

<comment><USER10> True. And, if possible, eventually expanding into the original segment is always a possibility. It's all about finding an untapped niche or one that needs some new tapping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There was a great conversation at: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2931368> with regards to a similar issue with another member here on a throw away acount.</comment>


What are some real world applications of graph algorithms? - <AUTHOR> Can you guys give some real world examples of what graphs algorithms people are actually using in applications?<p>Given a complicated graphs, say social networks, what properties/quantity people want to know about them? <comment><USER3> In search/social/IR: reputation graphs, PageRank, reachability, link canonicalization & dupe detection, identifying "objects" that are referred to by different names (eg. people, company names, knowledge graph, synonyms, etc.), propagating properties known to one entity onto related entities.

In geo/rideshare/logistics: shortest-path routing, traffic flow, minimizing the distance driven by someone who needs to make multiple pickups, optimizing delivery routes.

In health: contact tracing, recommending closures of social activities

In industrial/EE applications: circuit theory, flow networks, load stresses

In basic CS infrastructure: register allocation, dependency management, dead code removal, data-flow propagation, figuring out bandwidth requirements in a network

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's a real world graph problem that is probably worth some money.

Design a data structure that represents "business logic" as a graph and transformations between graphs.

Now given two distinct "business logic" data structures, A and B, write an algorithm that can:

\- check if all flows/paths through A are present in B

\- if not, enumerate which paths are no longer present

\- for each path not present in B that is in A, enumerate possible substitutions

\- for any given path in A and B define a distance metric that estimates the cost of any flow in A versus in B

Now I haven't don't this so I don't know if there's an elegant way to do it without some serious category theory/abstract algebra chops, but this is essentially a problem that costs millions of dollars in businesses. Evaluating changes to processes and their potential cost/benefit as well as deltas to other processes when structures are changed is extremely expensive, and it's why migrating ERPs or CRMs is so time consuming.

Of course for it to be real world, you need the business logic to be fuzzy because you don't have all the information to define such graphs A and B perfectly.

<comment><USER5> I've wondered about this myself. I've tried imagining nodes as types and edges as functional transformations between them. Then there are essentially topological "moves" that you can make on your graph that shift the type data around and change the structure of your graph. Two programs are equivalent if the type graph of program 1 can be transformed into the other by these moves. This is all fuzzy thinking and not fully baked at all, but compilers do this all the time to construct optimized "equivalent" programs which gives me hope. I don't have the background in CS to pursue this rigorously though.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure this question has been studied in a thesis or ten in the field of computational sociology (which I didn't know existed until I googled the term).

I think there are a number of ways to state this problem in terms of graphs and their transformations, that's usually the case when it comes to abstractions. I think the question more worth answering is the methods by which real world organizational and business problems/processes can be expressed as graphs and their transformations, and how to perform analysis of those graphs for given queries about their nature.

I know a few people who do this but not as a rigorous CS discipline, it's often called Industrial Organizational Psychology, Process Optimization, etc etc. Its a complex interdisciplinary field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Phil-bitplex Most everything I work on is related to graphs if I squint enough.

But to take an example from my visual planning - Gameplan.global - i use graph algorithms to model task dependencies, as well as the grouping structure.

When the tasks and dependencies are modelled as a graph, and the user wants to change a dependency, I can check the graph for a cycle. If a cycle will be introduced after the change, the change is disallowed.

It's not as grandiose as one could imagine for a very large social network graph, its practical and solved the problem I.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pixie is the recommendation engine at Pinterest, based on random walks on a graph: [https://link.medium.com/cgxBc05RO6](https://link.medium.com/cgxBc05RO6)

</comment><comment><USER7> Graphs are used to model dependencies of software libraries. If your build system can detect circular dependencies it's using a cycle detection algorithm of some kind.

</comment><comment><USER8> Substructure and exact match molecule searches are example of graph matching algorithms

<comment><USER9> While true (I make a living working with them), I don't think the OP is that interested in graphs which are that small. What makes molecular graphs a bit more challenging is that there are 1 billion or so "small" graphs to search in a very large database. There are also important issues in how to represent a molecule as a molecular graph. Concepts like stereochemistry are tricky to handle.

"Search" here means subgraph isomorphism search.

No one that I know of uses a graph isomorphism test to compare two structures. Instead, they convert the molecular graph into a string, where the atoms and bonds are in a canonical order - perhaps a SMILES string or InChI string - <USER2> use a string search. Graph canonicalization is therefore important for molecular search, but not for the "complicated graphs, say social networks" the OP mentioned.

One specialized topic I worked on was the maximum common substructure problem. Given two molecules, what is the largest subgraph. Now extend that to N molecules. Now, find the largest subgraph which is in at least P% of those molecules.

<comment><USER10> That sounds interesting. Have you published anything?

<comment><USER9> On 2D molecular similarity search, yes. [https://jcheminf.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13321-0...](https://jcheminf.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13321-019-0398-8) . The general approach reduces a 2D molecular graph into a 1D bitstring "fingerprint" which is representative of the graph, and such that bit-wise similarity (Jaccard-Tanimoto) of the fingerprint gives a useful proxy estimation of molecular similarity.

For the rest? No. I'm primarily a software developer, not paper author.

There's my co-authored paper at [https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jcim.8b00173](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jcim.8b00173) , which depends a lot on (sub)graph canonicalization.

The maximum common substructure algorithm I developed, for a set of compounds, is part of the RDKit, "fmcs". The original pure-Python implementation is at [https://bitbucket.org/dalke/fmcs/src](https://bitbucket.org/dalke/fmcs/src) . It's been rewritten since then in C++ for the RDKit.

The Python code is easier to understand.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I Microdosed Before It Was Cool - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mshannabrooks/i-microdosed-before-it-was-cool-584604da94af <comment><USER2> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uA0iFN...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uA0iFNxvF_8J:https://medium.com/%40mshannabrooks/i-microdosed- before-it-was-cool-584604da94af)

<comment><USER3> "Free for Google, paywall for everyone else."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great - just used one of my limited "free passes" which I didn't even know that I had. Nice one Medium...

</comment><comment><USER5> Google Web Cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uA0iFN...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uA0iFNxvF_8J:https://medium.com/%40mshannabrooks/i-microdosed- before-it-was-cool-584604da94af)

>>> They tasted, to quote Workaholics, "like a mummy's dick."

But the experience was delightful. I went on a walk through the woods, wrote pages and pages in my notebook, completed several assignments, and read most of a novel. I made a real dinner for myself and enjoyed it. I napped.

The next day, I felt a kind of mental clarity that had been distinctly missing amid the fog of anxiety, sadness, hunger, and exhaustion. For days, a kind of halo effect lingered where I felt more capable, more adept.

If a full dose left me feeling this good, I though, maybe just a small amount would help me get through my dark patches. <<<

<comment> unkown-unknowns Another copy: [http://archive.is/K6O8U](http://archive.is/K6O8U)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Okay, we get it. Medium inserted a paywall. If we really wanna discuss that, can someone submit a story on it instead of posting top level comments here?

Meanwhile, what do people think of the actual article?

I'm really intrigued about exonerating drugs, but I'm way too scared to switch out my sertralin with shrooms or LSD

<comment><USER7> If you're scared, it's best not to do it.

IMO the best approach is to read about experiences on Erowid and similar sites, get used to which dosages go approximately how far, and when you finally are ready, prepare your mindset and externalities to promote a good experience rather than a bad one. It really is all in your head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is about people without access using illegal drugs to self medicate. The title could be 'I was ill and used before it was cool.' I'm not judging, but maybe that's one thing we could be talking about.

</comment><comment><USER9> Medium just fucked up really badly

</comment><comment><USER10> > Our drug guy sold us an entire sheet of acid tabs the size of a baby's > fingernail for a song.

What?

<comment><USER11> "for a song" means "very cheaply", and I assume "size of a baby's fingernail" refers to each of the acid tabs rather than the sheet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fuck you Medium, I'm not giving you my details to read stories on your platform.

<comment><USER6> I think you're supposed to give them your money - at least I the long run.

<comment><USER12> I appreciate they want to make money. If so they need to provide more value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Full dose is much better.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to think paywalled articles don't survive long on hn.

</comment><comment><USER15> HN users: we're sick of ad-driven content! We want to pay for quality long- reads instead of BuzzFeed clickbait!

Also HN users: Medium has a paywall now! How dare they!

<comment><USER14> I give information away for free... Not everything has to be monetised. This article is interesting, it's more of a blog really though, regardless I don't expect to pay for it, If I wrote it I'd be happy to give it away for free... because cmon, it's a personal fucking blog, you would pay to read someones blog?

<comment><USER15> Well, if you would be happy to give it away for free than go and do that. If you wouldn't pay - go and do that too, don't pay.

I, by the way, wouldn't (and didn't) pay for it too - but I sure as hell ain't complaining about it or try to tell people what to do with their intellectual property.

<comment><USER14> Well I sure as hell am complaining, I'm not saying people can't decide to monetise things... just don't expect me to not to complain that you are monetising something ridiculous as a result, those are freedoms of people on either side of the argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Join Medium to read this." Guess we'll see if that pays off.

</comment><comment><USER17> When did Medium get a paywall?

<comment><USER18> When Medium started, I was amazed that people would just donate their content to Medium instead of owning it. Now I hope these people are amazed too...

<comment><USER19> It looks like you currently opt in to the paywall as a writer.

 _" Hanna Brooks Olsen has locked this story exclusively for members. But with a free Medium account, you can access this post, plus two other exclusive stories this month."_

Of course, that could change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why would people post to HN stories that are behind any kind of walls (paywalls or loginwalls, or whatever they are called)?

<comment><USER21> To advertise them. Duh.</comment></comment>


JSON Objects to add gender diversity into your website - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Nava2/gender-identities <comment><USER2> Why link to a fork that's 5 commits behind master?

<comment><USER3> it seems the out of sync fork is accepting donations where the originator is not... suspect I'd say.</comment></comment>


Deface (Rails) customizes views without editing the template - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spree/deface <comment><USER2> This tool would be great for building an A/B testing framework around for various UI color/text/layout testing. You can isolate the testing from the regular code, and provide a set of overrides for a particular test that depend on whatever you segment your users by.</comment>


Time for Europe to stop being complicit in NSA's crimes - <AUTHOR> http://www.neurope.eu/blog/time-europe-stop-being-complicit-nsas-crimes

<comment><USER2> The problem is that most people don't care. The vast majority of the public would prefer to give up their privacy in return for free services.

The people will have their freedom slowly eroded, but at a rate that they cannot perceive. By the time they realize it, it will be too late.

\- Edward Snowdon realised this.

\- Bradley Manning realized this.

\- Julian Assange realised this.

As technologists we are complicit in this current erosion of (our own) rights. It is up to us to make the required changes.

The public deserve the truth, even if they cannot stomach it.</comment>