I have a thought... Well, multiple actually. Be prepared for some digressing.

[smashradio]

As some of us already "know", Fiverr has decided to let GPT 3.5 and what appears to be a merry band of teenage interns using two-line prompts do most of their outreach work for them. At least that's my impression after these past few months.

It was bad enough before this new brand of "transparency," back when I talked at length with Fiverr staff in meetings and emails about Fiverr needing to humanize their communication (this was after Fiverr decided to outsource the team responsible for the "Top Client's" feature to someone who didn't know that Coca Cola was an international brand, took arbitrary actions to remove top clients from "pro vetted sellers" and sent us boilerplate yet scary messages about losing access to the future—I'm not joking).

So here's a thought: How about if Fiverr hired some of their excellent sellers to write the outreach content for them? Instead of churning out uninspired, boilerplate communication that screams beanbag-sitting millennial gone lazy and high on AI? Because the recent stuff you've put out isn't just uncreative—it's a masterclass in mediocrity coming from a platform claiming to be the best at finding the right talent. 

Naturally, that would require Fiverr to actually know who to pick among their "top-rated" and "pro" sellers. Not easy when not even Fiverr seems to know how their own level system works anymore. The irony is laughable.

Adding insult to injury, you decided to hike the price of Seller Plus for people who thought they had bought into a lifetime discount. And based on some of the responses here on the forum, the only thing worth the 39 bucks is RTO.

The business idea is sort of genius, though. "Let's create a problem by making sellers feel completely powerless using the platform due to not having any protection against bad buyers, knowing that at any moment, someone can come along and place random orders without asking us first, and then charge for the solution."

😈😈😈

And they do it all just weeks after hitting us with a system that caused rage, confusion, and in some of the worst cases, cost people their previously successful businesses. (I'm saying this as someone not negatively impacted by the new system myself... yet). And in my opinion, the system isn't the biggest problem: it's the way they didn't involve their top senior sellers and then hit us with wall upon wall of GPT-generated corporate mumbo-jumbo, and having the guts to call it "transparency". 

Anyway, I digress. My point is that perhaps Fiverr should employ humans to do what humans do best – talking to other humans. You could avoid a lot of unhappy sellers doing so. 😁

Sorry for the long read. 

Edited April 2 by smashradio

[emmaki]

35 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Fiverr decided to outsource the team responsible for the "Top Client's" feature to someone who didn't know that Coca Cola was an international brand, took arbitrary actions to remove top clients from "pro vetted sellers" and sent us boilerplate yet scary messages about losing access to the future—I'm not joking

[yourbrandingpal]

Humans pretending to be bots, that seems to be the new norm across, not just Fiverr but Amazon, Microsoft, banks. The quality of hiring seems to have dropped or its probably another cost saving exercise, not sure. Sadly AI seems to be demonstrating more empathy than real humans. 

[emmaki]

Just now, yourbrandingpal said:

Sadly AI seems to be demonstrating more empathy than real humans. 

A-ha! What is actually happening is that humans who don't know what to say but want to sound empathetic are turning to soulless, emotion-free robots trained on acres of AI content so they can put together a reasonable sounding word soup that sounds like empathy!

[katakatica]

51 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Anyway, I digress. My point is that perhaps Fiverr should employ humans to do what humans do best – talking to other humans. You could avoid a lot of unhappy sellers doing so. 😁

I've thought about this a lot lately as well.

I'm competent enough to ask chatGPT to give me advice on things so why am I paying someone else to use it (or to reformat their thoughts with it? I want human connection, especially when I'm frustrated or just genuinely curious and need help. 

There was also a post lately clarifying what SMs do (which feels less now than before) so part of me feels a bit like the service is declining but we are paying more. 

I understand the need for the communication of people working for the same company needing to be uniform (or correct when it comes to English / etc but I'd rather have someone sounding human when replying to me than starting with the "I understand that"-

But then again, the articles by Fiverr have been pushing us to use quick responses / setting up automessages as well (like when someone first writes to you.)

From their standpoint it looks good? 

I don't get it. I really don't because I struggle enough with humans already but maybe it seemed to do well initially and they thought that meant it was a good idea? 

[smashradio]

19 minutes ago, katakatica said:

There was also a post lately clarifying what SMs do (which feels less now than before) so part of me feels a bit like the service is declining but we are paying more. 

Yup, I remember. It was all very passive agressive and went something like "Hey, we know you're paying for this, but, please don't use it" to my ears. It's the same feeling I get when browsing Netflix and they keep shoving the worst teenage drama shows in my manly (now bearded) pipe-smoking, steak-eating face. It's like they don't want me to watch anything. 

21 minutes ago, katakatica said:

I understand the need for the communication of people working for the same company needing to be uniform (or correct when it comes to English / etc but I'd rather have someone sounding human when replying to me than starting with the "I understand that"-

But then again, the articles by Fiverr have been pushing us to use quick responses / setting up automessages as well (like when someone first writes to you.)

From their standpoint it looks good? 

I don't get it. I really don't because I struggle enough with humans already but maybe it seemed to do well initially and they thought that meant it was a good idea? 

There's a difference between having a set of brand voice guidelines and having a bunch of teenage interns churn out GPT-generated boardroom balderdash. If Fiverr employed competent people, they wouldn't need to use GPT to follow a set of standard brand voice guides. I do that every day when I write for multiple companies who take that stuff very seriously. People used to be able to write stuff without AI. They also used to be able to connect like humans. There's nothing human about what's going on here. It's made to squeeze as much money out of us as possible before AI takes over everything. 

 

 

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, smashradio said:

As some of us already "know", Fiverr has decided to let GPT 3.5 and what appears to be a merry band of teenage interns using two-line prompts do most of their outreach work for them. At least that's my impression after these past few months.

 

 

CS is reading it now preparing a thoughtful response:

 

[newsmike]

39 minutes ago, katakatica said:

but I'd rather have someone sounding human when replying to me than starting with the "I understand that"-

 

Reminds me of this on the beeb.

 

 

[smashradio]

19 minutes ago, newsmike said:

 

Reminds me of this on the beeb.

 

 

I love that interview. Peterson handled it so much better than I would have. 

[levinewman]

I'm voting this thread for American president 2024.

[visualstudios]

16 minutes ago, levinewman said:

I'm voting this thread for American president 2024.

Nah, it's not old enough.

[arefinemunna3d]

2 hours ago, smashradio said:

As some of us already "know", Fiverr has decided to let GPT 3.5 and what appears to be a merry band of teenage interns using two-line prompts do most of their outreach work for them. At least that's my impression after these past few months.

It was bad enough before this new brand of "transparency," back when I talked at length with Fiverr staff in meetings and emails about Fiverr needing to humanize their communication (this was after Fiverr decided to outsource the team responsible for the "Top Client's" feature to someone who didn't know that Coca Cola was an international brand, took arbitrary actions to remove top clients from "pro vetted sellers" and sent us boilerplate yet scary messages about losing access to the future—I'm not joking).

So here's a thought: How about if Fiverr hired some of their excellent sellers to write the outreach content for them? Instead of churning out uninspired, boilerplate communication that screams beanbag-sitting millennial gone lazy and high on AI? Because the recent stuff you've put out isn't just uncreative—it's a masterclass in mediocrity coming from a platform claiming to be the best at finding the right talent. 

Naturally, that would require Fiverr to actually know who to pick among their "top-rated" and "pro" sellers. Not easy when not even Fiverr seems to know how their own level system works anymore. The irony is laughable.

Adding insult to injury, you decided to hike the price of Seller Plus for people who thought they had bought into a lifetime discount. And based on some of the responses here on the forum, the only thing worth the 39 bucks is RTO.

The business idea is sort of genius, though. "Let's create a problem by making sellers feel completely powerless using the platform due to not having any protection against bad buyers, knowing that at any moment, someone can come along and place random orders without asking us first, and then charge for the solution."

😈😈😈

And they do it all just weeks after hitting us with a system that caused rage, confusion, and in some of the worst cases, cost people their previously successful businesses. (I'm saying this as someone not negatively impacted by the new system myself... yet). And in my opinion, the system isn't the biggest problem: it's the way they didn't involve their top senior sellers and then hit us with wall upon wall of GPT-generated corporate mumbo-jumbo, and having the guts to call it "transparency". 

Anyway, I digress. My point is that perhaps Fiverr should employ humans to do what humans do best – talking to other humans. You could avoid a lot of unhappy sellers doing so. 😁

Sorry for the long read. 

Thanks For Sharing 

[yourbrandingpal]

17 hours ago, emmaki said:

A-ha! What is actually happening is that humans who don't know what to say but want to sound empathetic are turning to soulless, emotion-free robots trained on acres of AI content so they can put together a reasonable sounding word soup that sounds like empathy!

Not necessarily. To save costs if you hire people who lack reading and comprehension skills, no amount of training might help you in providing good customer support. With Fiverr I suppose they don't always view sellers as clients too. And then there is process knowledge, or lack thereof that often leads to support providing misleading information. In the past week alone I've encountered 3 instances where the rep provided me with misleading information. I wouldn't think that organizations would allow their employees to take help from AI either. There's usually a dedicated training team to support operational aspects of customer support. But not disregarding that people may still try to take help from AI. Like those instances where lawyers were in trouble for using fictitious cases in the court which later on was attributed to AI generating made up stuff.

[smashradio]

21 hours ago, levinewman said:

I'm voting this thread for American president 2024.

21 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Nah, it's not old enough.

 And it wasn't born in the US of A. 😛 But thanks, @levinewman - I'm not sure if that says more about this thread, or the current political climate in the US. I heard Hollywood is already churning out modern civil war movies. 

 

 

[levinewman]

1 minute ago, smashradio said:

 And it wasn't born in the US of A. 😛 But thanks, @levinewman - I'm not sure if that says more about this thread, or the current political climate in the US. I heard Hollywood is already churning out modern civil war movies. 

 

 

Modern is right. We're on the verge of #civilwar2 in the immediate future up in here. 

[smashradio]

9 minutes ago, levinewman said:

Modern is right. We're on the verge of #civilwar2 in the immediate future up in here. 

Sad stuff, sad stuff.