Shorting such an illiquid share would be extremely risky - you...

Shorting such an illiquid share would be extremely risky - you could face a gap up of 20% or more to cover even a tiny parcel of 30 or 40,000 shares.

FLN continues to add users and market volumes.
Structural change a couple of years ago now had them turn away subscription revenue from low quality sellers that was leading to poor quality spam bids on the service. This is in the interests of marketplace users and long term shareholders.

The management team have always invested small amounts in congruent businesses.
For example, Startcon, the various international marketplaces specialising in graphic design, entrepenuerism or local language workers, and Escrow.com itself, a relatively low cost investment. Freightliner/Channel40 was not a material investment, but is another avenue for growth and adds to the vertical integration.

Claims that freelancers don't stick around are similar to the fears ebay would disappear in 1997 once buyers and sellers met up. The reality is buyers have a range of needs that can't be fulfilled by the first freelancer they engage, so return to the platform, and freelancers use the platform to market to a range of clients. Thinking a freelance contract to design a logo or fix some javascript will lead to a long term engagement points more to your limited understanding of the market than some failure - people don't have jobs for life anymore and buyers on freelancer.com aren't using the platform to recruit permanent staff.
Revenue growth hasn't been as strong as it was in the lead up to 2016, but is growing year on year. New initiatives such as the enterprise market will continue to expand the marketplace, other initiatives like the Escrow payment API will also expand the market.I agree if you are only narrowly interested in the freelancer marketplace, and only in per hour take rate, then you are being left behind by an evolving freelance model globally. Maybe consider the future as well as the past, though?
Or invest in more limited competitors such as fiverr?