2. You have a misunderstanding of slavery. If you’ve taken economics you would understand minimum wage is a price floor. Minimum wage is not meant to prevent slavery. It’s good for making people feel good about not seeing a lady at the local mall making cents per hour for a vital job. It’s not so good for a global economy. Basically a price floor shuts out everyone who could offer the service or good for cheaper. No, I don’t believe slavery is always pointing a gun at someone’s head. But I do believe to make the claim of slavery, or slave-like conditions, you have to present an argument with high barrier to exit. Not only is it pathetically easy for a provider to quit a service like oDesk with zero repercussions, but you can do so at any time and leave projects unfinished.

So in sum you misunderstand economics. Look up barriers to entry, price floor and maybe get some perspective. The wage is not the only thing to look at when you make a claim about slavery or illegal sex workers wouldn’t be called slaves because they make hundreds an hour even though they often are, trapped in their work (the real definition of slavery).

I have many teams and projects on Odesk, and the screen-capture is the best Idea ever. Why? Well, try managing a team, meeting deadlines, budgets, and answering questions when you can’t see what they are looking at. Then you might understand why buyers and providers alike love it. They just upload a screenshot, and you are both on the same page. If you work in an office job, don’t kid yourself… they read your e-mails, and know exactly when you are or aren’t working.

Furthermore, Odesk doesn’t require your credit card at all to post a job. I tried other services, like Elance, and they wanted my credit card BEFORE even posting a job. What the hell? AND they won’t stop e-mailing me to do it. Odesk ONLY require’s 10$ refundable deposit to make sure it’s your real card…. this is awesome, reduces fradulant cards and protects providers/buyers.

I don’t work for Odesk, I just LOVE how it’s changed my life. In a matter of weeks, I was able to increase my company’s man-power and outperform my competitors. I’ve met amazing people, and done things that were not possible before with local talent. Thank you Odesk!

For all the companies supporting oDesk, at the end of the day you get what you pay for. Your customers are still going to be able to spot a cheap design, no matter how rich you think you made some Ukrainian. I went to school with a lot of very talented and amazing designers who will treat a project like it’s the only thing that matters in life; you can’t get that dedication for $10/hr.

One last thing, some of these arguments are just wack man. Really think through what you’re saying before you leave a comment, please.

Trust has to be earned but how that trust is earned is worked out between the freelancer and the client who is using their services.
It’s a two way street, I’m very cautious of new companies after having bad payers in the past including several I’ve had to take to court to get money from.
Luckily these have been the exception but it’s why a clear contract is important before doing any work for a company with clear requirements and deliverables agreed.
There are companies looking to get work done for free and there are companies looking to get quality work done at a good price.
There are freelancers looking to get paid for dragging their feet and there are freelancers looking to deliver quality software to meet their clients requirements.

If a company never shows respect or trust then they shouldn’t expect any return.

Remember, as a freelancer/contractor you can choose who you work for and if you don’t like a clients work ethic then just wave goodbye.

Freelancing and contracting isn’t about just employment. I run a limited company and what a client is getting is a service provided by my limited company which includes my expertise, development skills and time.
What my limited company expects in return is cooperation and a fair work ethic from its clients.

I personally would not have a camera because for myself I would not want to be monitored. If someone else is happy with that then that’s up to them.

Just remember it’s a two way street and you if you are not happy with the service or client then switch. If you don’t like how oDesk works then don’t use it. There are plenty of alternatives out there.

If theres enough of you not happy then create an alternative to oDesk.

Ultimately even in a global market you get what you pay for.

Design a basic, clean and functional 4 – 5 page website for a small rustic cafe. Should have an outdoors/cabin feel to it.

Bid must be VERY CHEAP – Please do NOT bid if you are over the fixed price.

Please view attached document for more info.
Estimated Budget: $6

This one is even better:
Pay is $0.85 per hour anyone higher will be rejected

I have websites where tne developer started then left the jobs 90%completed. i need someone to complete the work on many sites.

This is a permanent job part time 10 hours per week for 6 months

Both jobs have many, many providers bidding on these two.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

oDesk is right huge increase this year in freelance work, huge increase in hours worked, huge decrease in average pay per hour worked. Aren’t stat’s great.

I am an oDesk provider. One of the reasons I have used oDesk is what I thought was protection from buyers who abuse the system and steal from honest providers.

Over all oDesk has some good features, but…

I had a client through oDesk. I spent at least 1 week and untold correspondence to meet the requests for a bid and work. The client changed the job spec’s twice, I was able to get the client to understand that some work will need to be an hourly rate and some a fixed rate. 2 assignments were created by the client; I provided a proposal for the hourly work along with the time and details for the job. I start the assignment and was on my second week when the client decided to reset the completion time and how many hours he thought it required, he also said that I committed to doing it ALL in 10 hours, but my proposal was for 16 hours at a minimum for only the hourly portion of the assignment. I also made several attempts to explain that it was 2 parts, 1 for core work by the hour, and a fixed rate for custom programming if required, I never said I would do it all in 10 hours, if that was the case why did the client create 2 assignments and higher me for the hourly rate to start, and review my proposal that included the 16 hours for part 1.
The above was to fill in what happened next…
The client decided to switch from 10 hours/week assignment to 1 hour/week without informing me, then sent notice to oDesk that there is a contested week of 10 hours.
I then stopped the assignment and waited for oDesk to respond, I was allowed to provide my side and data to oDesk arbitration, and this is what happened…
I LOST; the reason is, and only is, I did not have enough data points for them to monitor my activity, even though I always logged in to oDesk tracking software every time for that buyer.
What needed to be done is every 15 minutes I needed to describe what I was doing for the previous 15 min. for all time logged in for that buyer. Now there is no set policy for how many times you need to explain per hour what you are doing, but once an hour would still have not been enough…the reason I lost was I did not monitor what I was doing even on an hourly bases because there was a limit to how many hours I thought I had bid to actually do the work, I did not compensate for the 15 min/hour monitoring time.
In my opinion oDesk and the buyer were RIGHT, I did not follow oDesk policy to the letter and accepted the outcome of the arbitration, although I had no choice.
Also since I lost the arbitration I was responsible for the oDesk fee for the $125.00 for the 10hours for the second week. Since I am also a Buyer at oDesk I had my credit card on file for buying other providers services, oDesk charged my credit card for their lost oDesk fee. So not only was I out the $125.00 for the 10.5 hours worked that week I was also out the oDesk fee on money I did not earn.
Here is my solution, either quit oDesk, or…I will, for every oDesk hourly job I get, monitor my work every 15 minutes for every hour that I work for that Buyer, I will then have no issues when Buyers want an accounting of my progress, if for some reason the buyer does not feel that I am performing on the assignment and wants to contest that week I will at least know that I have been following oDesk policy to the letter…Who cares if I get the work done as long as I get paid and to stay competitive I will not compensate for monitoring times, just use the time I was contracted to do the work to do both monitor, communication and ALSO DO THE WORK, and even better yet not charged the oDesk fee if I violate their policy. I also will not inform the Buyer on this, that I need to spend an average of 5 min. describing what I did every 15 min. on their assignment, it is their problem to find out. I will be fully covered, Maybe…

What’s so wrong with an employer wanting to make sure that a worker who he has never met and never worked with isn’t playing WoW instead of working?

If I get a bad case of diarrhea, guess what? I go to the bathroom and my employer isn’t charged because there is no mouse or keyboard activity? Why should he pay because I ate two week old pot roast?

To answer the first two questions you asked:

1. Time spent “thinking”, researching, planning, doodling, etc. can be billed as “offline” time. The employer and provider can agree on how much offline time is needed and appropriate for the project.

2. oDesk adds 10% to the rate charged by the provider (worker). The provider gets their full asked-for hourly rate.

This big-brotherish concept also brings a distinct (and huge!) advantage for the worker: oDesk guarantees payment for all online (monitored) work. An employer can’t refuse to pay for work that has verifiably taken place. If all else fails, oDesk will step in and make payment. I can’t begin to imagine the number of contractors out there that are trying to wrestle payment out of their employers. Not a problem on oDesk.

The bottom line is that no, buyers on oDesk don’t trust the providers, nor do they have reason to. The guy that hired me did so despite the fact I was the highest bidding contractor for his job (my rate is 10x the lowest rate bid). He hired me because he’s had bad experiences with others on oDesk (not working, shoddy work, etc.). It’s no surprise he might want to monitor the work being done – I would too.

Your employers get to watch you work and to check up on you. At the college where I teach, I have official observations and student evaluations, and of course my classroom is open to my supervisors at any time.

My non-oDesk clients call me, IM me, ask for reports, and otherwise watch my work. If I’m working on-site, they can come and watch what I’m doing if they feel like it.

I don’t use a web cam at oDesk (it’s optional), but I don’t mind the screenshots. I’m proud of my level of productivity, and I don’t mind clients seeing my work any more than I would mind having someone drop by my classroom.

Now, that’s the emotional aspect.

Look at the practical side. I can accept work from complete strangers on the other side of the world because I know that oDesk’s payment system protects me. They can hire me, a complete stranger on the other side of the world, because oDesk’s oversight system protects them. On both sides, we know that oDesk has our back.

I’ve hired some graphics folks through oDesk (I wrote about the experience here: http://www.rebeccahaden.com/blog/2009/10/on-hiring-at-odesk.php) and I like being able to see what they’re doing without disturbing them. It’s interesting. My work isn’t all that interesting, since it’s mostly just Word documents getting longer, and I doubt that my oDesk clients actually look much. Still, I’m glad that they can if they want to. I want them to feel confident about hiring me.