visualstudios

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Btw, could you share that pdf, maybe?

What. WHAT. No, that is NEVER nice. I don't even believe what I'm seeing lmao

Nah, it's not old enough.

Never do this. Low budget clients are the most demanding, unreasonable, vengeful buyers you can get. It seems counter intuitive, but a buyer buying the same exact thing for 100 times the price will 99% of the time be much more understanding of issues, will readily accept to pay extra on top for things out of scope, etc. If they're paying pennies, they'll work you to the bone and never be satisfied. Just say no.

This does sound like an amazing opportunity - if it is what it seems. Namely, a way to be hired on retainer, or hourly, where the client pays us directly (not through a "gig"), so no reviews, no wait 7 days to clear, no commission, etc. That's basically what everything I've read on their documentation points to - this is not like Fiverr in any way, it's a directory to hire freelance talent directly, like if we were getting hired by clients outside the platform. If this is indeed the case, and if there is demand (if they can get enough clients)... this can be the best thing that has ever happened to Pro sellers. But as always, transparency is lacking.

But that doesn't make any sense, since clients can pick an option that says "hire now". That presumes there are rates set.

Also got the e-mail, but I have no idea what to do about it. I can't see my profile, I don't think I have an account in that platform (where are my log-in details?). I don't know what my rates are on there. This is all very confusing.

Nah, they don't really listen to us either.

Who knows. This was what they were predicting in 1899 for 100 years in the future. It's impossible to predict the future of technology past a certain point, and the rhythm with AI will be exponentially accelerated. Anything we predict here is highly likely to sound totally ridiculous in 20 years.

... so far In any case, AI is a different beast. We can make decisions about weapons, because weapons are not sentient. We can't make decisions about an intelligence that is higher than ours, that's nonsense - that intelligence will make better decisions than us.

Easier said than done. The same logic applies to nuclear weapons - we need them, because if we stop ourselves from making them, we will be at the mercy of those who don't. AI is the exact same thing. It's not enough to stop some from doing it, as long as someone does (and you can't stop everyone), it's smarter do have it for ourselves as well.

In that case, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I worry only because I have no idea what the future holds. And by future I mean into eternity.

Yes, that's a possibility. Transhumanism, just like we replaced the ancestral apes. Next step in evolution. Another is that we live free from work, watched over by machines of ever loving grace. Another is just straight up extinction.

It's not about being "awesome". It's about being unavoidable once we cross the singularity. If something is faster and cheaper, it will displace what isn't - doesn't matter if that is "good" or "bad", "moral" or "imoral". It just is what it is. AI can, potentially, kill billions. Doesn't matter. Nothing matters, really. Just efficiency.

Pretty much, yes. But that's the good ending, and for a minority. For the majority, the outcome can be far, far worse.

That's a very hard question to answer, and indeed it can be an existential threat to Fiverr, yes. I think they can survive by focusing on verticals / services that can't be replaced by AI, or that need a human touch. They can also try to pivot into an AI company themselves, I suppose, and offer the AI services directly, but i'm not very confident in their capability to do so (specially compared to AI juggernauts like openAI, etc.). But I bet that they are as scared of it as sellers are. But they can't just ignore it - if they chose to do that, and go with "human services only", if AI really takes off, nobody would ever want to buy what they can get for basically free from a machine. They would go under regardless.

It's like when we used to see gigs selling "I'll remove a background from your image for $5". Then it became "I'll remove the background from 100 images for $5". And now is... any phone will do it, natively, and instantaneously at the click of a button, using AI. So those gigs are irrelevant, and dead.

It's not AI on Fiverr, it's AI period. Fiverr is irrelevant for that discussion, actually - Fiverr won't be needed, and won't get any of that business lol. Google translate didn't kill it over the last few years because it was garbage. For the longest time, "google translated it" was a joke, a synonym of "badly translated". But recently with true AI models (chat gpt and the like), translation has gotten very very close to the quality you could expect from a human, and it will get there shortly. For many applications it's already there.

I still have some hope that this change will clean the platform of a lot of meksells, and push clientele towards the upper end. From what I've seen, most Pro / TRS sellers that are serious and well known (you included, but many more) got great scores, which should mean more business for them. I hope. Of course this doesn't excuse what they did with the new review system (unfair and unbalanced), lack of transparency, and a lot of other bad decisions. But it's not certain that business will drop for good sellers, the opposite can actually happen.

Yeah, but in that case the culprit is probably AI itself, not necessarily Fiverr. I'm not defending Fiverr, btw, you know I've been very critical of several decisions. But it's a fact that AI disrupted a lot of verticals. Translation, for example, is something I truly believe will not simply decrease - it will go to zero. Literally. Regardless of what Fiverr does or doesn't do, it will happen. It's unfortunate, but it's true. Sooner or later, everything will be replaced with AI, and some verticals will be affected sooner than others. Writing and illustration are particularly vulnerable right now, the effect is being felt across the entire industry, it's not just a Fiverr thing. For now, it seems there's a chance to keep working as a specialist with AI help, or prompt engineer, etc. But in the long run, even that won't be necessary.

In small details like the success score, sure. But the entire business model? Fiverr has always been a storefront, where buyers contact sellers. Upwork has always been a bidding platform, where buyers post jobs and sellers have to apply. This means Fiverr is infinitely more interesting from a seller perspective - if I wanted to be constantly applying to jobs, freelance work would be hell, at that point may as well just try to get a job where I have to apply only once.

What platform is that? Looks suspiciously like fiverr,

That's very interesting - specially given how 4.7 is the minimum to keep TRS status (theoretically at least), and you need 4.4 even for level 1. Interesting to know if 4.3 will also say well done, as Fiverr has been saying that 4.0-4.9 is good, and more trustworthy than 5.