I have zero association with Moonlight. It just looks promising to me and I am interested in supporting gig work done right. So I have promoted them to people looking for work.
Thus, the excess of developers on Moonlight maybe partly my responsibility. I have made a mental note to look for opportunities to promote them to people who need someone to code for them to try to balance that out a bit.
I do freelance writing through a portal. It is a well designed, well run system and some people genuinely support themselves. Due to my medical situation, I only work very part time and I don't yet make the kind of money I want, but it is trending in the right direction. So I think a well done portal can work. The fact that there are lots of busted ones out there in no way proves this one is also busted or that a portal is hopeless.
I have seen some articles that suggest that gig work is the future and that up to 40% of work will be done in this fashion by 2020. I think the trend is unavoidable. So, the question here becomes "How do we do this in a way that works well for all parties?" I am interested in promoting platforms that work well for all parties, including the worker.
So, I am sorry you have had negative experiences, but I see zero to believe that the existence of multiple terrible platforms in any way suggests this particular platform is doomed to failure. Hopefully the remarks in this discussion will help the founders to focus on upping their game on finding folks looking to hire programmers, since that is currently a weakness.
You got me wrong. The ones I mention aren't terrible in general. Indeed, I went into the details exactly to prove that they don't have to be run by a bunch of unprofessional idiots to make freelancers waste their time. Yes, moonlighting looks good. So they have a nice designer. Yep, based on their comments they look nice guys. So are the others I have mentioned. (Actually, if you check out gun.io, they say they've paid something like $16M over the years to freelancers. Far from being a scam.
However, and that's the thing I tried to point out, the market seems to be aligned against this model. AND these sites should at least be aware of that and not take advantage of that. Don't play the martyr :), I didn't mean to blame you, of course, it's not your responsibility to be aware how much deals they can bring in. I just wanted to remind you, that it's not as easy as "they are just too new".
I know that everyone talks about the gig economy and how it keeps growing. But it doesn't mean that ALL kinds of jobs will be 'gigified' at the same rate. Also, the gig economy is not necessarily good for the freelancers/gig workers as long as it's a form of cost saving for the companies.
And that's exactly the reason I think that software development is just not as valuable (on average and in general) when done by freelancers as opposed to in-house devs. Because if it was, then it was just as easy to find gigs as a freelancer as easy it is to find a job as an employee (again, as a developer). But while I get regular contact requests on LI from potential employers and head hunters, it's still not trivial to land a gig as a freelancer. Even if you look through the opportunities, you'll see that there are a lot less serious ones (disregarding the competition).
There is, of course, an opportunity in this, just like any problem, so I'm not complaining, just analyzing the market.
Thus, the excess of developers on Moonlight maybe partly my responsibility. I have made a mental note to look for opportunities to promote them to people who need someone to code for them to try to balance that out a bit.
I do freelance writing through a portal. It is a well designed, well run system and some people genuinely support themselves. Due to my medical situation, I only work very part time and I don't yet make the kind of money I want, but it is trending in the right direction. So I think a well done portal can work. The fact that there are lots of busted ones out there in no way proves this one is also busted or that a portal is hopeless.
I have seen some articles that suggest that gig work is the future and that up to 40% of work will be done in this fashion by 2020. I think the trend is unavoidable. So, the question here becomes "How do we do this in a way that works well for all parties?" I am interested in promoting platforms that work well for all parties, including the worker.
So, I am sorry you have had negative experiences, but I see zero to believe that the existence of multiple terrible platforms in any way suggests this particular platform is doomed to failure. Hopefully the remarks in this discussion will help the founders to focus on upping their game on finding folks looking to hire programmers, since that is currently a weakness.