The hourly rates are in increments of $5

I don’t know about anyone else, but I simply can’t be bothered to work for $5 or $10 per hour. Really. I could hold sandwichboard signs for that much, and skip the whole process of begging for work on the internet. $15 and $20 is where the rates start to cross into my “I can suck it up for a while” territory, but even there I would expect that $20/hr rate to land me customer relationships or provider ratings that would enable me to land higher rates.

In a purely emotional sense, it feels unfair that I have to compete with individuals in developing countries who are willing to do labor for so little money.

However, it’s not unfair – that’s just the way the market works. I have to remind myself that the “hire a freelancer” sites aren’t the whole market; they only appeal to exactly the market subset that I am least equipped to operate in: the one in which employers only care about the hourly rate, and nothing else. I simply can’t compete with a 5$ per hour code monkey who doesn’t speak english. Employers who want to hire that guy want to hire him because they explicitly don’t want to hire me at a higher rate. My advantages in traditional markets are not as advantageous in the online freelancing market:

• I have a breadth of knowledge and experience that most people don’t. This is offset in the online market because one can hire a different individual for $5/hour for as many skills as you need, and you might still be able to underbid me.
• I have experience in the defense world. Defense contractors and embedded systems developers have structural impediments to playing in the online contracting market
• I have a strong educational background that plays well into particular application domains that don’t typically present themselves in online markets

Coupled with this, I have two very important (although linked) disadvantages: living expenses are higher here than in most developing countries, and the labor market rates in my market here are much higher than what is available in online markets.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not whining (ok, just a little bit), but I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that online freelancing markets are just not for me. Sadly.