Tom Slee

I suspect users of these sites are fully aware what kind of a bad deal these websites are. If you are in a situation where you cannot be fully employed or start your own business, they seem like your best hope. These websites are exploitative because they can hold the livelihood of people on already shaky ground hostage. Since the clients on these websites know that the users may be somewhat desperate, they can drive prices down - it becomes a race to the bottom.

What can the OP do, short of creating publicity of Freelancer's behaviour? There does not seem to be any protections ensuring that the author gets paid. He'll be held to the 'terms of service' - which will always be in the client or Freelancer's favour - this is not enough.

They make me think of the rent seeking nature of the 'sharing economy' which just weakens the market and distorts it because it takes advantage of people who do not have an escape. Like if you're uncertain whether you're going to have a place to sleep or eat in the next month.

http://tomslee.net/2013/08/why-the-sharing-economy-isnt.html

Yup. It started with the campaign touting the positive effects on the NYC economy, now it's the "let's pull some heartstrings" video.

For those who missed it, I've outlined my experience with AirBnB (as a non-host in a building with hosts) last week - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7923849 (top comment)

For anyone defending AirBnB here's a nice list of things to read before you do so:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/item/airbnb-san-francisco-30110.php

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1230/Berlin-squeezes-Airbnb-on-short-term-apartment-rentals

http://tomslee.net/2014/05/the-shape-of-airbnbs-business.html

http://tomslee.net/2014/06/the-shape-of-airbnbs-business-ii.html

Thanks for the feedback! The reason we have leaderboards on the homepage in the first place is to quickly answer the question, "Is anyone actually making a living here?" I looked at Flattr and could not for the life of me answer that question. Now that the matter is established, I agree that it's time to change the homepage. I've added a +1 for you to https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074.

Re: Stories, see http://tomslee.net/2014/01/airbnb-stories.html for a counterargument.