Freelancers are not the main concern. There are too many freelancers from 3rd world countries, and every day more freelancers are signing up, yet it doesn't matter much as long as there are keen employers continuously employing them. For example, when I find a good freelancer I don't bother posting a new project for the similar jobs. I always work with the freelancer that I trust. I keep paying him/her regularly from which the Freelancer.com takes its commission. However I only own a small online business. There are large companies who started to use Freelancer to outsource their repetitive/boring tasks.
One of the limiting factors preventing large, institutionalised firms to use Freelancers are copyright, insurance issues. For example, if you need to facelift for your company website, you can hire some Aussie company that has been around for a while and known for their professional work. But they would charge you ridiculous, exorbitant fees ie. $20K whereas you can get exactly same job done to a freelancer for $500 but how would you trust to let a random freelancer living in a far-away 3rd world country gain access to your website? That's one bottleneck.
For example Macquarie Uni has recently changed their logo (3rd time, sigh!). The stupid logo cost the uni ~$500K. It's not a typo, it's NOT $500 bucks, it cost ~ $500,000. And this is just the design. Why? Because they had to invite some "sophisticated" wanker designers to do some very sophisticated research uni history, this and that to provide counselling to higher-ups for 6months to come up with a one frigging design. If the Macquarie posted this job online with an award of just $10,000, I'm sure the best artists from all over the world woudl provide amazing logo designs. But it's a bit too early for big institutions or companies to use Freelancer platform at this stage.
FLN Price at posting:
81.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
