Classical Economics says that in the long run, it's impossible to defy full-employment or saturate any market, Lassez Faire or free trade is quite the norm. Needless to say, the classical framework is based on some rational assumptions like no entry barriers to competition, free flow of information, rational actors who act in their own interest, etc. And yet, given these basic assumptions, the market indeed seemed to work that way for decades and centuries. And most global markets too, not just the freelance market.
The phenomenon of a "long term recession" or "long term saturation" is an unprecedented one and happening for the first time in history. From the news I read and watch, this seems to be happening in almost all sectors but freelancing is what affecting me directly. While short-term corrections of excesses and anomalies have indeed affected economic activity in the past (like world wars) but these aren't such exceptional times. The broader narrative is one of increasing prosperity, GDP output and stock market profitability all over, yet the middle class struggles more and more to find every morsel to feed their hunger.
Coming back to Upwork, a massive entry-barrier in the form of having to purchase connects is itself a problematic symptom. This indicates that supply/demand ratio is heavily tilted in favor of clients; again, this should self-correct itself in a rational market given the classical assumptions but it has carried on for several years now.
Another reason for an unhealthy supply/demand ratio is "brandification" of things which is a symptom of excessive consumerism. This isn't about just freelancing but the increasing cynicism and lack of trust of humans towards one another. Humans have lost empathy towards fellow human, they'd rather trust a Dominos or McDonalds than the little guy cooking French Fries or Samosas in the basement. They'd rather trust an Infosys or Tech Mahindra than the little freelancer who is struggling to make a living.
And from their perspective, they could be right. Apple can give them 24x7 support which I can't, the most I can do is respond to emails or messages within a specified time. There is also the human limitation of how much Coding, Testing, Deployment and Support a single individual freelancer could provide. Does it mean the age of individual freelancers is finally coming to an end, and only big businesses and agencies will eventually thrive?
The only way I can see real revival of freelancing as career option happening is if society at large wakes up from its usual cynical blue-pilled bubble, and starts having some faith in fellow homo sapiens like them, not just abstract entities like brands, gpts and platforms.
Have a nice day ahead, and may the Logos bless everyone!
You are probably young and don't remember previous downturns. It is true that it's not possible to find any freelance project these days. And not just freelance, companies who sell outsourcing services to companies, have budgets for in-person visits, exhibitions and conferences, and have professional leadgen and sales teams , also can't sell anything at all - i'm in contact with several of them. It has nothing to do with Upwork or connects.
For the time being, custom development market is dead. It's probably not worthwhile to keep kicking a dead horse. I for example, gave myself a sabbatical.
But in late 2008-late 2009 there was exactly the same thing going on. It's natural and repeats once in a business cycle. Same factor that usually plays in favour of contractors: ability to satisfy short term demand without committments means commanding much better pay than full-time staff - plays against us in downturns; when there is slightly less demand for coding, contract market instantly saturates.
Get back to it in a year or two, things will fix. It happened many times in history before, now is not at all an exceptional time, all old-timers remember these days.
Good time to have a kid if you don't have one yet. That's what i did last time.
Go lower in the stack and wait. Wait is the keyword here because some people can't hold on to tech for a couple more years without income.
There is a lot of stuff (packages/crate/repos) going unmaintained. It used to be hard to make an open source contribution in 2015-2021 as it was competitive and it brought resume value. That is no longer the case. Also lots of companies stopped their open source contributions/paid staff working on OSS. The only open source going on now is the one that monetizes the company bottom line.
In 1-2 year lots of stuff will start breaking and companies will need people to fix this stuff. Eventually they'll start hiring again whether full time, part time, freelance you name it.
Judging by what I read in the comments, this is probably not a good time to go contracting/consulting which I believe is the primary formats of freelancing.
And I have something back in my head telling me that this time is different from 2001/2008 because of major geopolitical challenges ahead.
I think the best way is to stick to full time jobs, hop every 2 years to prevent "layoff without a backup plan", reduce as much cost as possible and hopefully retire in ten years.
> The broader narrative is one of increasing prosperity, GDP output and stock market profitability all over, yet the middle class struggles more and more to find every morsel to feed their hunger.
This can only mean one of two things: Either the narrative is wrong, or the narrative is a well concocted lie.
I also wouldn't underestimate the impact of AI. Anecdotal, but the times I used Upwork it was to get tasks where quality wasn't too important off my plate. AI does all those now.
Interesting posts
Blaming macroeconomics, politics, "society," platforms, etc. will get you nowhere. Those things have nothing to do with your individual success (or failure) as a freelancer.
Since you mention Upwork, if you call that piecework auction site "freelancing" I think you misunderstand freelancing. That site caters to and represents the low-end, the race to the bottom in both price and quality. Few people can make a good living from Upwork and Fiverr, and even fewer who live in high cost of living countries.
I have not noticed any downturn in freelance jobs in the last few years. In fact anecdotally I see more freelance work available than a few years ago -- layoffs always create opportunities for freelancers. I also see a lot more people (some of them recently laid off) trying to get started as freelancers and flailing with that, which will appear to make the field look saturated and too competitive. That happened after the 2000 internet bubble popped, and after 2008 layoffs.
Successful freelancers bring more to the table than a list of tech skills or a "stack." They have experience and deep business domain expertise, sufficient marketing, sales, legal, and accounting knowledge to find, sell, and keep their clients. Probably most important they have good professional networks, because freelancing mainly comes down to reputation and word of mouth. No serious freelancer I know or have worked with uses site like Upwork.
I can't tell if you want to get freelance work or develop a complex theory to explain how the world doesn't work as it should. If you want to freelance I would focus on the necessary skills and connections rather than trying to make sense of the confusion of memes and factoids you included in your post.