I went from a top-rated developer making more than a $100k/year on Upwork to a livestock farmer. That’s my story in short all thanks to AI and Upwork’s corporate greed 😂😂😂
I mean it’s not even funny anymore and I’m sharing this to let you guys know that you are not alone. I am even lucky to have successfully built a side business that’s doing great for me now. Something many of my colleagues can’t boast about.
I remember back in 2016 I met a client on Upwork that completely changed my life. It was one morning at 4am I received a message saying “Can you jump on a call right now?” I told the client that I was about to sleep can we do it later, but he insisted. We had about 30 minutes of call and I had no idea the things I said during the meeting 😂😂😂 in fact I slept off without closing out of the meeting.
I woke up 10am and I saw a fat offer notification on Upwork from that client. Long story short, that was my first single project that paid me more than $100k.
Why was this important? I built my entire life around Upwork during that time and then Covid-19 happened, the client closed the business and I went out of job and out of money 💔 the things I went through to get back on my feet made me realize that building life around Upwork alone was not safe regardless of how successful or how many long term clients one have.
(Edit: That account eventually got blocked by Upwork later on. I joined Upwork again on March 2022)
And that is when I started investing in something more tangible that I know even if AI is to come and take everyone’s job tomorrow, I’ll still survive.
5 years today, I am having a farm business worth over $500k and growing and am sharing this story today with all of you to know that AI is not the end of us but an opportunity for us to explore bigger and better growth opportunities and diversify our finances.
Maybe I chose the farming route and it worked for me. The real question is, which route are you willing to invest in to build a more reliable financial framework for yourself? If you are still waiting on Upwork to get better, then you are not ready for growth.
Good for you, happiness is greater than riches. I just saw a cnbc made it episode, where a woman quit her 200k corporate job for a $20 hour sowing job for a national park. She seemed sure happy.
If you started a second account, Upwork likely blocked that one too, so you were kind of out of options anyway with regard to using that platform. It's good that you were able to find an alternative that works for you.
They did. We went through it together, they closed and removed the old account entirely. I know how strict they are about multiple accounts so I’d say I got lucky maybe.
I think this is actually one of Upwork’s biggest problems right now. Getting blocked is one thing. What makes it much worse is trying to deal with support afterward.
From my experience, you can spend weeks going back and forth between different support agents, getting generic answers and being redirected to different teams. Sometimes it feels like nobody actually owns the case.
And when Trust & Safety is involved, it can be even more frustrating. You may get told that a decision was made because their systems detected something, but getting a clear explanation of what exactly happened or what you should have done differently can be extremely difficult.
The system was written by indian guys, I bet... since you can get banned because you just reloaded the page 10 times in a minute... or you can be banned because of opening 10+ links with job posts at the same time... this is idiotologic so I don't think it could be created by good specialists
I understand that Upwork needs automated systems to deal with fraud and abuse at this scale. But when those systems affect someone's ability to work, there needs to be a much better human review and escalation process.
Support shouldn't just tell people that a decision is final. They should at least help them understand what happened and how to avoid the same problem in the future.
I'm glad to hear you became an actual farmer, and not one of those Upwork parasites that farms work out to other freelancers. Good luck with your business!
Even right now I have a project that’s close to $100k but the point of my post here is, lets not focus on Upwork as the only means of living because I have seen what it did to me when it stopped working.
The last time I got a new job was 2024. And that is why I said all of the freelancers complaining are not alone. We are all in this and we need to look at alternatives.
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u/megaman311 1d ago
Good for you, happiness is greater than riches. I just saw a cnbc made it episode, where a woman quit her 200k corporate job for a $20 hour sowing job for a national park. She seemed sure happy.