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Posted

Dear Fiverr,

It’s not me — it’s you.

When I joined Fiverr, I bought into the dream: freedom, creativity, and the ability to be my own boss. What I didn’t sign up for was a never-ending rat race to the bottom where every seller is forced to outwit, outlast, and outperform your absurd algorithms just to keep the lights on.

The allure of Fiverr was simple: work anywhere, set your rates, and create something meaningful. The reality is closer to working for a micromanaging boss who thinks “feedback is valuable” as long as it fits neatly into a pre-approved checklist from a beanbag-sitting lazy gen-z latte-drinking bunch of humblebragging AI humpers. 

Fiverr isn’t a marketplace for freelancers anymore — it’s a factory where creativity goes to die, choked out by arbitrary metrics and AI clones, brought about by a staff so turned on by the thought of AI that they forgot the very foundation of their platform: real, human talent.

Fiverr staff is more interested in courting investors than fostering the irreplaceable ingenuity that made their platform worth anything in the first place. It’s not innovation — it’s laziness dressed up in a corporate PowerPoint.

You want to know what finally broke me? With a “success score” of 10 out of 10, you’d think I’d be one of the shining, happy faces in your marketing slides.

But no. Fiverr, you’ve managed to give grown men hypertension, exacerbate autoimmune issues in your top sellers, and now — most impressively — you’ve convinced me that I’d rather set my own career on fire than keep working for a platform run by what can only be described as quantifiable assholery. Truly, your consistency in undermining your own talent is nothing short of remarkable.

Fiverr, you used to be a marketplace for human talent. You built your empire on the backs of us, the people who poured their time, sweat, and tears into creating something authentic. Now, you’re actively promoting tools that undercut us at every turn. 

But I guess we can´t blame. you. You´re run by the american toxic productivity culture. Sellers who’ve been loyal for years are treated like disposable razor blades. One bad review, one sick day, and we’re suddenly persona non grata. 

So here I am, saying goodbye. Not because I couldn’t “hack it,” (I´ve been a TRS and a Pro seller for years) but because I refuse to play a rigged game designed to make my friends, and me, ill.

Fiverr has turned from a place of opportunity into a corporate machine that prioritizes its stock price over the people who built it.

To my fellow sellers: you are brilliant, resilient, and far better than the system that exploits you. Never forget that Fiverr needs you — you don’t need Fiverr.

And when this house of cards eventually crumbles under its own short-sighted greed, I’ll be sipping a coffee somewhere, doing something I like instead of sucking up to AI-powered staff members, useless chat bots and a buggy site designed to keep you down. 

Best of luck to all of you still fighting the good fight. I’m off to find clients valuing talent over templates.

//Leo

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Posted

One of my buyer came 2 times in sequence to extend the review time +5 days +3 days, more they extend less is the probability they will leave a review in the end of the project. Most funny is that Fiverr Gamification system do not see this with good eyes, you are impacted if buyers simply let the order be auto-completed.

Years ago, 1 week was time enough to complete the orders... today due this abuse of extension of time is common have orders pending for +1 month (Because the buyers keeps postponing the approval, some of they abuse of all options available to them)

2025 Fiverr New Features:

  • Will Fiverr Remove the "Auto-Completion" from orders?
  • Maybe they will change auto-complete orders from 3 days to 7 days
  • Any worst scenary to Sellers?

You know when buyers purchase some order the money is already with Fiverr, now about you: you can stay there with orders pending for 1 month or 2 months. Now, more the buyer postponing the order without reason, less in hurry sellers are to provide some update (you know the buyer is not in hurry to approve it)

The situation of this gameficiation became so stressful, that the better advice I could give when buyers are abusing of the system is: Just pretend it not happened, schedule the revision to next days or weeks... at anyway you will not receive the payment for the order so soon.

“Success Score” 10 out of 10, also means nothing... you just need 1 cancelation or 1 bad review to be deranked in Fiverr Search, the final impression of the gamification is: More you dedicates to Fiverr less value you have! And we know, this is why big sellers like you want quit Fiverr.

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Posted (edited)
52 minutes ago, mateusbl said:

One of my buyer came 2 times in sequence to extend the review time +5 days +3 days, more they extend less is the probability they will leave a review in the end of the project. Most funny is that Fiverr Gamification system do not see this with good eyes, you are impacted if buyers simply let the order be auto-completed.

Years ago, 1 week was time enough to complete the orders... today due this abuse of extension of time is common have orders pending for +1 month (Because the buyers keeps postponing the approval, some of they abuse of all options available to them)

2025 Fiverr New Features:

  • Will Fiverr Remove the "Auto-Completion" from orders?
  • Maybe they will change auto-complete orders from 3 days to 7 days
  • Any worst scenary to Sellers?

You know when buyers purchase some order the money is already with Fiverr, now about you: you can stay there with orders pending for 1 month or 2 months. Now, more the buyer postponing the order without reason, less in hurry sellers are to provide some update (you know the buyer is not in hurry to approve it)

The situation of this gameficiation became so stressful, that the better advice I could give when buyers are abusing of the system is: Just pretend it not happened, schedule the revision to next days or weeks... at anyway you will not receive the payment for the order so soon.

“Success Score” 10 out of 10, also means nothing... you just need 1 cancelation or 1 bad review to be deranked in Fiverr Search, the final impression of the gamification is: More you dedicates to Fiverr less value you have! And we know, this is why big sellers like you want quit Fiverr.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did everything on your list. I’m not the first “top-rated” “pro” seller with years of experience and hundreds—if not thousands—of happy buyers to walk away. That says more about Fiverr than it does about us. Fiverr has been losing quality sellers for a while now. I don’t expect my leaving to make any difference to them, but for me, it’ll eliminate the unnecessary stress of working on a platform that doesn’t value human talent and want to gamify my career. 

 

 

Edited by smashradio
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Posted
On 1/20/2025 at 1:57 PM, smashradio said:

Dear Fiverr,

It’s not me — it’s you.

When I joined Fiverr, I bought into the dream: freedom, creativity, and the ability to be my own boss. What I didn’t sign up for was a never-ending rat race to the bottom where every seller is forced to outwit, outlast, and outperform your absurd algorithms just to keep the lights on.

The allure of Fiverr was simple: work anywhere, set your rates, and create something meaningful. The reality is closer to working for a micromanaging boss who thinks “feedback is valuable” as long as it fits neatly into a pre-approved checklist from a beanbag-sitting lazy gen-z latte-drinking bunch of humblebragging AI humpers. 

Fiverr isn’t a marketplace for freelancers anymore — it’s a factory where creativity goes to die, choked out by arbitrary metrics and AI clones, brought about by a staff so turned on by the thought of AI that they forgot the very foundation of their platform: real, human talent.

Fiverr staff is more interested in courting investors than fostering the irreplaceable ingenuity that made their platform worth anything in the first place. It’s not innovation — it’s laziness dressed up in a corporate PowerPoint.

You want to know what finally broke me? With a “success score” of 10 out of 10, you’d think I’d be one of the shining, happy faces in your marketing slides.

But no. Fiverr, you’ve managed to give grown men hypertension, exacerbate autoimmune issues in your top sellers, and now — most impressively — you’ve convinced me that I’d rather set my own career on fire than keep working for a platform run by what can only be described as quantifiable assholery. Truly, your consistency in undermining your own talent is nothing short of remarkable.

Fiverr, you used to be a marketplace for human talent. You built your empire on the backs of us, the people who poured their time, sweat, and tears into creating something authentic. Now, you’re actively promoting tools that undercut us at every turn. 

But I guess we can´t blame. you. You´re run by the american toxic productivity culture. Sellers who’ve been loyal for years are treated like disposable razor blades. One bad review, one sick day, and we’re suddenly persona non grata. 

So here I am, saying goodbye. Not because I couldn’t “hack it,” (I´ve been a TRS and a Pro seller for years) but because I refuse to play a rigged game designed to make my friends, and me, ill.

Fiverr has turned from a place of opportunity into a corporate machine that prioritizes its stock price over the people who built it.

To my fellow sellers: you are brilliant, resilient, and far better than the system that exploits you. Never forget that Fiverr needs you — you don’t need Fiverr.

And when this house of cards eventually crumbles under its own short-sighted greed, I’ll be sipping a coffee somewhere, doing something I like instead of sucking up to AI-powered staff members, useless chat bots and a buggy site designed to keep you down. 

Best of luck to all of you still fighting the good fight. I’m off to find clients valuing talent over templates.

//Leo

Leo, I can agree with almost every point you made, except I don't think the Yanks are solely to blame. There's plenty of asshattery to go around globally. Hate to see you go.  Good luck, it's been fun. 

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Posted
6 hours ago, newsmike said:

Leo, I can agree with almost every point you made, except I don't think the Yanks are solely to blame. There's plenty of asshattery to go around globally. Hate to see you go.  Good luck, it's been fun. 

I’m not blaming America here—just pointing out that the culture of toxic productivity, where work always comes first no matter what, doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the world. That’s not to say it’s inherently bad—after all, that same work ethic got us to the moon and helped shape much of Western civilization. The problem is forcing everyone into the same grind and letting some arbitrary AI decide if they’re meeting the “acceptable” standard. Have you watched Severence? Perhaps that´s their ultimate goal. 😆

But blaming Americans exclusively? Not at all—that’s not what I meant!  🇺🇸 

Thanks! It´s been an honor, Mike! 

 

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Posted
On 1/20/2025 at 9:57 AM, smashradio said:

I’m off to find clients valuing talent over templates

I'm certain that you'll have no problem doing exactly that.

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Posted
15 hours ago, smashradio said:

some arbitrary AI decide if they’re meeting the “acceptable” standard.

Yeah, that definitely pushes away a lot of sellers. I really hope you reconsider, as you said, the platform has been losing great sellers for a while, and I would hate to see you and other forum friends go away... It's already very lonely here... I don't want to be surrounded by meksells...

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Posted

As a new seller, reading all this is demoralising and sad, making you wonder if it is worth the time and effort. This post reminds me of a saying my friend used to say when we were also struggling. These online marketplaces or platforms are like a moving train; every day, thousands board, and another thousand get off. The sad/good part is that the train keeps moving; it is up to us to decide when to get off and move on with our lives.  The Train won't stop, and neither does the Journey, so be positive and move on as we did. All the best.

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Posted

Your words are correct, everything is currently being updated, to survive here we have to work with a competitive spirit, only then can we be successful.

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Posted
On 1/20/2025 at 8:57 PM, smashradio said:

Dear Fiverr,

It’s not me — it’s you.

When I joined Fiverr, I bought into the dream: freedom, creativity, and the ability to be my own boss. What I didn’t sign up for was a never-ending rat race to the bottom where every seller is forced to outwit, outlast, and outperform your absurd algorithms just to keep the lights on.

The allure of Fiverr was simple: work anywhere, set your rates, and create something meaningful. The reality is closer to working for a micromanaging boss who thinks “feedback is valuable” as long as it fits neatly into a pre-approved checklist from a beanbag-sitting lazy gen-z latte-drinking bunch of humblebragging AI humpers. 

Fiverr isn’t a marketplace for freelancers anymore — it’s a factory where creativity goes to die, choked out by arbitrary metrics and AI clones, brought about by a staff so turned on by the thought of AI that they forgot the very foundation of their platform: real, human talent.

Fiverr staff is more interested in courting investors than fostering the irreplaceable ingenuity that made their platform worth anything in the first place. It’s not innovation — it’s laziness dressed up in a corporate PowerPoint.

You want to know what finally broke me? With a “success score” of 10 out of 10, you’d think I’d be one of the shining, happy faces in your marketing slides.

But no. Fiverr, you’ve managed to give grown men hypertension, exacerbate autoimmune issues in your top sellers, and now — most impressively — you’ve convinced me that I’d rather set my own career on fire than keep working for a platform run by what can only be described as quantifiable assholery. Truly, your consistency in undermining your own talent is nothing short of remarkable.

Fiverr, you used to be a marketplace for human talent. You built your empire on the backs of us, the people who poured their time, sweat, and tears into creating something authentic. Now, you’re actively promoting tools that undercut us at every turn. 

But I guess we can´t blame. you. You´re run by the american toxic productivity culture. Sellers who’ve been loyal for years are treated like disposable razor blades. One bad review, one sick day, and we’re suddenly persona non grata. 

So here I am, saying goodbye. Not because I couldn’t “hack it,” (I´ve been a TRS and a Pro seller for years) but because I refuse to play a rigged game designed to make my friends, and me, ill.

Fiverr has turned from a place of opportunity into a corporate machine that prioritizes its stock price over the people who built it.

To my fellow sellers: you are brilliant, resilient, and far better than the system that exploits you. Never forget that Fiverr needs you — you don’t need Fiverr.

And when this house of cards eventually crumbles under its own short-sighted greed, I’ll be sipping a coffee somewhere, doing something I like instead of sucking up to AI-powered staff members, useless chat bots and a buggy site designed to keep you down. 

Best of luck to all of you still fighting the good fight. I’m off to find clients valuing talent over templates.

//Leo

All the best, Leo. Not far behind you. 

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Posted

Yeah I truly hate it here now. I agree with you and wish you the best. Honestly you being a TRS and PRO means you got treated better than most on the platform

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Posted
On 1/21/2025 at 4:57 AM, smashradio said:

Best of luck to all of you still fighting the good fight. I’m off to find clients valuing talent over templates.

//Leo

Honestly I couldn't have said it any better. I've been on the site since 2011 and I've been a TRS for the vast majority of that time. This time last year when the seller success score came out I was kept in limbo for over 10 months wondering if I could ever get my 8 up to a 9 and keep my TRS, I was soooo worried about it. Then I lost it in November and I watched my Fiverr sales drop 80% this year of last and it's out of no fault of my own. Then when I did get back to a 9, three days later I was back at a 7... with only positive reviews... and no real feedback from Fiverr other then, try harder... lol

Fiverr use to be a really neat place to work... now it's worse then a 9-5 job, I can't imagine the business model that thrives under kicking out all the people who made this site what it is today and all the veteran talent for no real reason other then an algorithm.

Good news is, January was the best month of my book cover making career, seems as if I was selling myself short on here. While Fiverr is telling me to drop the prices I've built up over the last 10 years through hard work and dedication, I went elsewhere and out on my own and raised them, and people are paying... and gladly, plus I don't have to pay a 20% cut to anyone, Fiverr's loss. 

 

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Posted
On 1/22/2025 at 6:35 PM, smashradio said:

I’m not blaming America here—just pointing out that the culture of toxic productivity, where work always comes first no matter what, doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the world. That’s not to say it’s inherently bad—after all, that same work ethic got us to the moon and helped shape much of Western civilization. The problem is forcing everyone into the same grind and letting some arbitrary AI decide if they’re meeting the “acceptable” standard. Have you watched Severence? Perhaps that´s their ultimate goal. 😆

But blaming Americans exclusively? Not at all—that’s not what I meant!  🇺🇸 

Thanks! It´s been an honor, Mike! 

 

I feel like the problem is with every company that grows quickly like Fiverr. Somewhere there is a room of people at Fiverr who have nothing better to do then to "fix" things that aren't broken.

All Fiverr had to do was provide a platform for people to sell digital goods and services and then take 20% that's it, 99% of all the other stuff they have bought, tacked on and created have just ruined this core concept. It's one of the most toxic places I have ever worked and it's all manufactured and automated..... it's insane to me, manufactured algorithmic toxicity to get you to be constantly on edge over a number... so their sales go bigger.

The good news is, it's an unsustainable business model, you being a TRS and level 10 and still quitting proves this.... There is only so much hamster wheel a person can run before they are sick of it. 

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Posted

Yes My Success Manager also told me that if the buyer accepts the delivery rather than auto-complete, it impacts positively. It clearly shows that auto-complete impacts your rank or stats somehow.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, chuoichien1102 said:

Many top rated sellers have left, is that an opportunity for new seller?

Probably not. Fiverr continues to get a flood of new sellers and that makes the competition even tougher.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, chuoichien1102 said:

Many top rated sellers have left, is that an opportunity for new seller?

If the system was fair, transparent and understandable none of the Top Rated Sellers would have left. Zero point in building up a business that can be torn down with a snap of the finger. 

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Posted
40 minutes ago, cal5086 said:

If the system was fair, transparent and understandable none of the Top Rated Sellers would have left. Zero point in building up a business that can be torn down with a snap of the finger. 

We are renting someone else's house to work, and we have to follow their rules. 1 is leave, 2 is continue.

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Posted
11 minutes ago, chuoichien1102 said:

We are renting someone else's house to work, and we have to follow their rules. 1 is leave, 2 is continue.

Well my problem isn't the rules, of course sites have rules. The PROBLEM is I played via their rules for 14 years on this site, I did EVERYTHING they asked of me, I maintained my TRS in good standing 5.0/4.9 stars, 100% response rate etc, top 3 in my category.

Then they changed the rules, applied it to the past and demoted me. If they did that once, they will do it again.

To use your house analogy, imagine you lived at someone's house, and you agreed on rent and the rules, once you moved in they changed the rent you owed so you now owe back rent and changed the rules so they can now evict you.... lol This is what Fiverr has done to many of us.

I'm not trying to tell anyone they shouldn't work on here, but you are building your foundations on sand, zero way I make that mistake again, cause if a 14 year vet of this site and other TRS are leaving, it should tell you something.

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Posted
2 hours ago, chuoichien1102 said:

We are renting someone else's house to work, and we have to follow their rules. 1 is leave, 2 is continue.

If the landlord wants to evict us, they must provide a "valid reason" and allow extra days for us to prepare for our next home.

Fiverr, on the other hand, can kick us out without warning, without explaining what we did wrong -- and without giving us a chance to prove our innocence. That’s like a landlord randomly changing the locks while we’re out and saying, "Sorry, my neighbor (AI algorithm that can often be inaccurate) told me you broke a rule -- but I won’t tell you which rule, when it happened or in what way. You just have to move out. Bye (and no need to contact me as my decision is final)!"

There can be many examples I can create from the "someone else's house" analogy.

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Posted
24 minutes ago, rawque_gulia said:

If the landlord wants to evict us, they must provide a "valid reason" and allow extra days for us to prepare for our next home.

 

Well, to be fair, here there is a set of rules that you accept when you start using the website. And they do have the right to stop any account if they think it breaches their rules. Because it's their platform and they made the rules. 

Thing is, when you use someone else's platform, you always abide by their rules. And while your analogy is great, realistically, all freelancing platforms will continue adding more AI features just because there are so many people. And we are small cogs in a very large machine, cogs that can easily be replaced. That's why I understand why Smashradio and many other friends I made here over the years are stepping away from the platform. 

Leaving all the AI stuff aside, the reality is that there are way less buyers. It's clear as night and day, AI has destroyed many niches and thousands of sellers are scraping the bottom. Some niches are still doing well, but it's clear to me that many don't. I think it's better for everyone to work on multiple platforms and of course, find some extra income sources. Because relying on a single platform, be it Fiverr or any other.. that's a death sentence. You don't have control over anything and you can be removed randomly at any time. And let's not pretend it's just a Fiverr thing, every platform can do the same, based on their rules. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

Well, to be fair, here there is a set of rules that you accept when you start using the website. And they do have the right to stop any account if they think it breaches their rules. Because it's their platform and they made the rules. 

Definitely agree, Alex. They can definitely make their own rules and of course, we can not do much since we are just small cogs in the system. But the real question is -- how many of these cogs are truly "happy and satisfied" with the algorithm?

Sure, people are earning well (including me, as it’s my livelihood) -- but if we talk specifically about the "lack of transparency in the algorithm", how many would genuinely say, "We don’t need a more transparent system"? There’s definitely "something" wrong if the majority are saying that the system needs improvement, especially when Top Rated sellers with millions of sales start quitting the platform. I think the right move would be to point out those flaws rather than just saying, "Their rules -- do anything," haha.

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Posted
1 hour ago, rawque_gulia said:

There’s definitely "something" wrong if the majority are saying that the system needs improvement, especially when Top Rated sellers with millions of sales start quitting the platform.

Yeah, those people want complete transparency or close to that. And realistically, that will never happen. As I said many times, as long as Fiverr guarantees buyers their private reviews are not shared, a lot of info related to reviews will be hidden and the algorithm is obviously very affected by that. I stopped obsessing over that a long time ago. I just focus on doing the best work I can for everyone. And you'll always find issues at times, it is what is.

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