Jump to content

You Work For Fiverr


silberma1976

Recommended Posts

I watched a friend do it and got booted. Now she is scrambling to find a source of income.

If you begin to think you work for yourself, there is likelihood that you’ll begin to break rules and actually get suspended

That’s not fiverr’s fault. I have no problem following the rules here for the past six years.

Don’t make empty deliveries and deliver on time— no problem.

Don’t communicate outside of fiverr or take money outside of fiverr— no problem.

Don’t be abusive to customers— no problem.

Answer questions from clients and do the jobs promptly— no problem.

Don’t send spam— no problem.

Just have one account— no problem.

How hard is that? Come on if someone is banned it’s not fiverr’s fault.

Disagree. It is not that black and white. And I am not placing blame on Fiverr. I am stating they make the rules, and as their employees we must follow, and you listed some of the rules well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disagree. It is not that black and white. And I am not placing blame on Fiverr. I am stating they make the rules, and as their employees we must follow, and you listed some of the rules well.

I’m not anyone’s employee. I’m self employed. If I was an employee I would have half of my FICA tax paid by fiverr and owe much less income taxes.

It’s ridiculous that someone can’t possibly follow the rules here. The rules are very easy to follow.

Sellers need to place the blame for being banned where it belongs: on themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By that logic, I’m the employee of the supermarket I use to shop at because I need to follow their house rules.

Last time I checked, Fiverr neither paid half of my health insurance nor did they expect me to sit at my desk from 9-5, I can’t send them a sick-note and sleep instead of working while they pay me just for being employed, or anything like that. I can block buyers, work when I want to, or not when I don’t want to, I can even take as much time off as I want to without needing to schedule my holidays with other people or to Fiverr’s needs, I can even just close my account right now if I feel like it.

One can argue that they have too many house rules or that their house rules are too strict or that they are too fond of ratings or stuff but no, we are not Fiverr’s employees, I do not work for Fiverr. I do business with a lot of very diverse individuals and companies via Fiverr’s platform and pay 20% of my earnings to Fiverr to use their platform, features and benefit from their ability to bring clients in.

If Fiverr were considered an employer and sellers employees, it would look very different; for example, at least in my country, it’s not as easy to sack an employee as it is for Fiverr to ban a seller from using their platform or for my supermarket to ban me from the house if I steal or misbehave in some way.

I’m very sorry for your friend, I’m sure she is an awesome person, but that she was banned doesn’t mean we’re Fiverr employees. If she was banned without any good reason, which none of us know, then that’s a shame, if she fully relied on Fiverr as her means of income, then that’s unfortunate, but neither of that means that we work for Fiverr, it just means that if we want to use Fiverr as a platform, we must stick to its rules.

Whether companies like Fiverr should be regarded as a kind of employer is another question but obviously there is a lot that speaks against it, else it would be regarded as one. Things do, can and might sometimes change (see the Uber case) but fact as of now is that we don’t work for Fiverr and aren’t Fiverr’s employees.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/24/2019 at 12:06 PM, miiila said:

By that logic, I’m the employee of the supermarket I use to shop at because I need to follow their house rules.

Last time I checked, Fiverr neither paid half of my health insurance nor did they expect me to sit at my desk from 9-5, I can’t send them a sick-note and sleep instead of working while they pay me just for being employed, or anything like that. I can block buyers, work when I want to, or not when I don’t want to, I can even take as much time off as I want to without needing to schedule my holidays with other people or to Fiverr’s needs, I can even just close my account right now if I feel like it.

One can argue that they have too many house rules or that their house rules are too strict or that they are too fond of ratings or stuff but no, we are not Fiverr’s employees, I do not work for Fiverr. I do business with a lot of very diverse individuals and companies via Fiverr’s platform and pay 20% of my earnings to Fiverr to use their platform, features and benefit from their ability to bring clients in.

If Fiverr were considered an employer and sellers employees, it would look very different; for example, at least in my country, it’s not as easy to sack an employee as it is for Fiverr to ban a seller from using their platform or for my supermarket to ban me from the house if I steal or misbehave in some way.

I’m very sorry for your friend, I’m sure she is an awesome person, but that she was banned doesn’t mean we’re Fiverr employees. If she was banned without any good reason, which none of us know, then that’s a shame, if she fully relied on Fiverr as her means of income, then that’s unfortunate, but neither of that means that we work for Fiverr, it just means that if we want to use Fiverr as a platform, we must stick to its rules.

Whether companies like Fiverr should be regarded as a kind of employer is another question but obviously there is a lot that speaks against it, else it would be regarded as one. Things do, can and might sometimes change (see the Uber case) but fact as of now is that we don’t work for Fiverr and aren’t Fiverr’s employees.

We are not literally employees. Figuratively we are employees. All that nice stuff about being able to holiday, take time off, delete your account is nonsense. Many part time workers not salaried in school systems or for other companies can do the same thing without concern. You still have to adhere to the rules of the organization and work to stay in tune so your account is in good standing. While Fiverr may not pay your health insurance, as I imagine you may be under a national system, for many the money earned her covers vital things just like that, and to those who choose this in a larger sense this is a job for them, and they choose to work through Fiverr and thus follow fiverrs house rules which makes them figurative employees.

Your supermarket analogy is way off on this one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/24/2019 at 12:45 PM, silberma1976 said:

they choose to work through Fiverr and thus follow fiverrs house rules which makes them figurative employees.

Following the site’s rules has nothing to do with being an employee. Do you expect to find a site to work on without any rules at all? Good luck.

Whether you have a website you want listed on Google, or have some videos you want posted on Youtube, the sites have rules.

If you post ads to sell things on Amazon, you have rules to follow. Does that make you an employee of Amazon? If you sell a car on Craigslist you have rules to follow. Does that make you an employee of Craigslist?

It seems like you cannot imagine working on your own and earning money unless you are employed by some company. It’s like there is some kind of mental block, like this can’t really be happening.

Every internet company has rules for the use of their site. Have you noticed that every site that people can post ads on has terms of service? Those are their rules for the use of the site and if you violate them you get banned. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started on Fiverr four years ago with no expectations. I had very little hope that it would amount to anything more than a hill of beans. However, I was proven wrong, and I am grateful for the platform and what it allows me to do: write and be creative while helping others. But, what I have come to realize over the years is that you and I work for Fiverr, not ourselves as so many of us think. Let me provide some solid examples.

  1. It is an algorithm rat race. To get and maintain any kind of income stream here you have to get work. Plain and simple. The more orders or the larger price of your orders, the more you make. In order to do this, you have to apply to the buyer requirements, reply to messages fast, deliver on time and have high-quality reviews. This is the system Fiverr set up for you and me to stay in their good graces and maintain a good influx of orders and clients. Mess up in any one area the algorithms deem important, and you standing and order amounts fluctuate. Thus, you are running a rat race to keep up with an algorithm.

  2. You are dispensible it’s its not your fault. How many times have you seen someone post about their account or gig getting taken away? Over my 4 years, I have seen many TRS and seasoned veterans loose accounts. I have lost Gigs and know others who have as well. And it is at the whim of someone else within the Fiverr system to decide if you lose your Gig or account - even if the circumstances seem shady. At any minute, you could lose all you worked for because of a word you use, an interaction with a customer, or some oddity. You are dispensable here. And Fiverr controls your outcome.

These are just two examples. But, if you think about it, Fiverr makes the rules. If you follow the rules and play their game, along with other important skills you can do well. However, if you break a rule, you can lose it all. There is no way around this. Ask yourself, have you kept your green light on to get more orders? Have you rushed to reply to messages for a quick response rate? Have you canceled orders to avoid bad review? Have you avoided or given in to difficult clients to avoid cancellations? If you answered yes to any, you can clearly see you work for Fiverr.

My suggestion - do not put all your egss in the Fiverr basket. Find other ways to earn. Because like any company you work for, the winds of change can blow in at any time and leave you in the cold.

Charles

While it was half in jest, I don’t think it’s any more off than yours and I don’t think our definitions of figuratively match. Your title and posts come off as if you’re saying that Fiverr is as good as our employer and I absolutely disagree with that, literally and figuratively, unless perhaps from the perspective of sellers who choose to consider Fiverr their employer one-sidedly.

All that and a lot of nice stuff more is no nonsense at all. I’ve worked in companies, for other people, and as a freelancer, not just on Fiverr or online platforms but in brick-and-mortar businesses, and I enjoy all that nice stuff quite a lot. I also know that I like being a freelancer, both on Fiverr and off-Fiverr a whole lot better than I liked it at some of the jobs where I was an employee. No, make that all of the jobs, actually.

Maybe the reasons for which some people like being freelancers are nonsense to you, though, could be, I guess, so if you want to call things I enjoy stuff nonsense, be my guest.

The examples you list yourself aren’t signs of being employed but pretty much all are valid if you own your own business “in the real world” too (apart from the algorithm thing maybe but today, usually your business’s survival depends on Google’s and other algorithms too, depending on your industry).

You don’t reply to that email or phone call to that potential customer fast enough? They may have called and done business with someone else already, business lost, next time you’ll probably reply sooner.

Have spent a few years building up your workshop and finally you’re actually earning money and have a good customer base? Too bad that right now your landlord decides he wants to sell the premises.

Avoided or given in to difficult clients sometimes? I guarantee you that loads of self-employed people who don’t even know of Fiverr have done that at times.

A customer doesn’t like how you talk to them or that you delivered late or didn’t do the job they hired you to do yourself and they thought they’d pay your hourly wage for your work and not for that of your apprentice, or whatever else? You could lose not just that customer but all your local business too if they tell everyone.

Those things you list aren’t exclusive to Fiverr and don’t prove that Fiverr is our employer which you seem to try to do, literally or figuratively, but apply to people working completely for themselves as well.

The crux of the matter is that Fiverr is not our employer, hence its unwise to completely rely on it (and you can’t even rely on any one employer, for that matter, unless you’re maybe in some really safe government job, if your employer goes belly up, you can find yourself out of work just as soon as you can get banned by Fiverr), I absolutely agree with your conclusion or suggestion, I thought my post made that clear, I just don’t agree with being told that I work for Fiverr or am their employee, neither in a literal nor figurative sense, because I’m not.

Ask yourself, have you kept your green light on to get more orders? Have you rushed to reply to messages for a quick response rate? Have you canceled orders to avoid bad review? Have you avoided or given in to difficult clients to avoid cancellations? If you answered yes to any, you can clearly see you work for Fiverr.

Kept on the green light to get more orders? No, actually, I often turn the green light off, like in the evening when I want to focus on something else than work, often forget to turn it on again, even go many days in a row without it.

Rushed to reply? Yeah, sometimes, but not always, like for any of my own businesses (I consider my Fiverr gigs my own business, using their platform, as I said).

Canceled orders to avoid bad review? Not yet. My cancellation reasons so far where that I really didn’t want to work with two people over two years (I couldn’t have done that if I was an employee here), and, of course, when people do accidental double orders or such.

If you didn’t want to discuss and hear others’ opinions, that’s okay too, I’ll just appreciate the suggestion/tip part of the post to not put all one’s eggs in the same basket, as a general truth in life and a good reminder for sellers then, it can’t be said or written often enough here. Good tip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...