The Wheels on the Elance Bus Go Round and Round

I've tantalized you all enough with the Elance restructure. It's now time for me to start unleashing the angered energy with all that is wrong with this new way of doing freelance bidding.

I'll give Elance props in one department. They know how to say the right things to appease some people. Before the restructure was unveiled, they handed out a few more connects for "Business" subscribers and they waived the fee on "premier" status for three months. Whoop de doo, right? Yeah, some of us weren't fooled. A whole lot of us were though because suddenly I started seeing "Thank you, Elance. You have enabled me to maintain my membership here" type of Water Cooler posts. Seems like several of my competitors are lambs being led to the slaughter, but not me of course. I know a disguised "Screw you!" when I see one.

Next up, the question of connects in multiple categories has been resolved ... and not in a good way. If you subscribe to more than one Elance category, you get a 50% discount after the first one (down from 80% after complaints were raised) but you guessed it, you get absolutely zero additional connects with those subscriptions. When I discovered that tidbit, I immmediately canceled my Sales and Marketing subscription. I was a math major after all. I can figure out that a 50% discount for absolutely nothing except the privilege to bid on a few more projects a month is not really a bargain.

If that's not bad enough, censorship is now in full force at the Elance Water Cooler. Posts, and sometimes full threads, are being deleted by Elance montiors if they are "irrelevant," relevancy being determined by the Elance powers that be, of course. I discovered this policy when a thread in which I'd posted, titled something like "Who is Seriously Considering Leaving Elance?" mysteriously disappeared. In other words, if what you say at the Cooler doesn't align with Elance philosophy, it's not allowed. Well, they may be able to silence me on their own site, but just let them try and do it to me elsewhere. Screw them!

To make matters worse, Elance one-upped itself prior to scheduled launch. Seven hours prior to the restructure being officially unveiled, Elance was "down for maintenance." Because we were given absolutely no notice of this downtime, we service providers were essentially stripped of seven hours of remaining free bidding time.

Once the restructure was officially launched, I made another astounding discovery. On top of now having to pay a monthly membership fee, a fee for additional connects, an 8.75% transaction fee on all projects won and a $20 monthly fee for a "premier" seal, I could now pay double the number of connects on any project I bid on in return for a "sponsored" placement (highlighting of my bid and placement at the top of the bidding heap). And to make this offer more enticing, Elance extends only two sponsored slots per project. Another sure moneymaker for Elance.

Speaking of moneymakers, projects that are labeled with budgets of "Unsure" or "Prefer not to disclose" by the buyers who post them have been arbitrarily assigned a cost of two connects, even though the vast majority of them are awarded for prices that would put them in the one connect category.

Finally, for reasons unknown, if you sign up as a "Business" provider as opposed to an "Individual" provider, you can NEVER downgrade to "Individual" status. Again, when I learned of this senseless bit of information, I made sure my subscription was set to "Individual" status. I can always upgrade but I can never downgrade. How stupid is that?

Screw you, Elance, for every single one of these aforementioned reasons. Despite your assurances to the contrary, the quality of projects has plummeted since the restucture was implemented. You wannna know why I think this is so? Because the buyers are vacating as quickly as the service providers. Since plans of the restructure were announced, I've received a VERY high number of potential clients contacting me privately about working with them outside Elance. So in some regards, I guess I owe Elance a thank you. Their stupidity may actually work in my favor by funnelling work to me that I won't be paying any transaction fees on. Yep, Elance, that's exactly what you deserve, too.