It’s only fair to say that despite persistent bitching and grievancemongering to the contrary, the gig economy services website Fiverr is actually quite a good way of boosting your income. Indeed, as with Patreon, some people have gone much further than beer money, and have actually brought in a prettty tidy sum each month.
The point of the final joke here is that people have a very elitist attitude towards Fiverr; I’ve noticed some relatively well-off people have a real sense of entitlement and victimhood about this.
And when it’s not entitlement and victimhood, it’s just moaning and grousing.
So, two reactions: full blown entitlement and victimhood, vs moaning.
The latter of the two kinds of reactions seems to be pretty well represented online.
Here are a few examples of the whingeing I’ve seen about Fiverr.
Firstly, let’s look at this article from Steve Douglas at the Logo Factory:
Ultimately my issue is with Fiverr who take 20% in commission for this nonsense (by comparison 99designs and other crowdsourcing sites take over 40%) while insinuating that anyone who charges more than $5 for a logo – the cornerstone of a corporate identity – is somehow ripping people off. That implies fraud. Theft even.
The ‘nonsense’ at issue seems to be possible cases of dishonesty or incompetence by some Fiverr sellers.
However, the term ‘fraud’ or ‘theft’ is a rather strong word. First of all, Fiverr never hinted or insinuated in any way, no matter how indirect, that anyone who charges more than $5 is ripping people off. First of all, there is a degree of (limited) flexibility in choosing prices. So you can always charge more! Secondly, the site is indeed called Fiverr, but it nonetheless seems rather literal-minded to attribute too much importance to this.
This kind of heated rhetoric takes a bit of the fun out of the proceedings.
Seems like a huge overreaction to me.
Secondly, look at This Design Girl:
This begs me to question, why are designers devaluing themselves for a skilled trade? I worked HARD in University for 5 years earning my degree. Do you know how many lectures I had to force myself to stay awake in? And it’s not that I am an elitist design snob (I was only kidding above).
Well, she may not be a design snob, but ‘devaluation’ still comes across as pretty judgmental towards the backbone of the country, i.e. people like and you, who have to fight hard for every penny. There’s a subtle whiff of elitism, however unwitting and unintentional, about all this constant beating down on those of us who have to do the best we can to scrape together a living.
Finally, Neil Andrew at Piccana.
Mr Andrew comes out with a number of reasons for ‘Why Fiverr Sucks,’ and these range from contentious at best to utterly ridiculous. But this is just the best thing ever:
Given the amount of time the freelancer has to create something for you, if they’re not used an automated system as covered earlier, then they’re probably doing something much worse. This could be stealing other people’s work to speed up time or just selling you the same thing they sold to the 10 customers before you.
I most certainly have never done anything remotely unethical in my entire time on Fiverr. And before anyone screams ‘anecdotal evidence’ at me, I’m well aware of what a logical fallacy is. So while we’re on the topic of fallacies, there is a question of the burden of proof. If Neil Andrew thinks some people may just be doing these things, he needs some much better hard and solid evidence than what seems (at least to me) to be little more than enlightened guesswork.
I can’t believe I’m even responding to this garbage innuendo; but this really is the absolute low point of a very unsatisfying article (to put it rather ‘politely.’)
The writer also seems to think there is something bad about Fiverr taking off 20% commission. I could try arguing why this is utter garbage, but I’m probably wasting my time.
Finally, the bit on ‘international workers’ is just so mindblowing stupid, I really have nothing left to say.
Let’s hope all three writers were having a bad day; I’m sure they have written some much better articles in the past, and I’m sure happier days are yet to come for their writing careers. Better luck next time!
Now, then.
This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Ugly as the cliche is:
What’s the bottom line?
Try it, and see if it works for you.
I know Fiverr has been helpful for me!