I have engaged three sellers on Fiverr. All had impressive demos and 5.0 ratings. Two of these delivered products I could never have used. Why their output fell short may have been due to more than one issue. One musician was clearly talented, but did not seem to invest himself in discerning what my track needed, despite a revision. The other performer had several very nice demos that bespoke talent, but his delivered takes were badly out of pitch and often deviated from the melody of the guide vocal I'd provided.
I rated them mostly 5 stars and shut up about the quality of their output, which is exactly what their previous buyers must have done to place me in this predicament.
How is the next buyer going to be well-served by this? S/he isn't. The cycle of meaningless ratings will continue to deceive buyers because no one is willing to tell someone that their (presumably) passionate and well-considered output was of low quality.
I have a suggestion as to how this could be improved. I would have had better, truer information at hand if I'd been able to hear sampled sections of the artist's recent deliverables. What if, rather than a list of seller-prepared demo media, each was permitted a few demos of their own choosing, to "pin" to their profile, with the remaining slots filled by briefly sampled sections of recently-fulfilled project orders. Scoring of a seller by a buyer, as a whole, should replaced with what registered visitors to a buyer's page think of a recent project deliverable, as these opinions will be offered in a more honest voice (though measures would have to be taken to disallow corrosive spamming).
Such a system would permit buyers to see what a seller is actually delivering, which is a product not only of cherry-picked and processed demo work as they might suggest to recommend themselves, but also the time and attention they committed to the sellers they serve.
tone
