Upwork contractors - what did you switch to now that Upwork is dead?

anovikov

Some just retired, some started product business, what did you do?

Helgindy

Nothing, there is no close replacement for it in my field, plus the economy is bad everywhere, and hiring is being limited to locals only in all counties.

anovikov

Helgindy It's totally not the case. Hiring is not the economy. Look at stock market returns. GDP growth is also from "just barely OK" to "very good" everywhere, no major country appears to be a downturn.
Economy wise, things are a lot better than 2-3 years ago, or 6 years ago (hard to compare anything to the covid era because it was a time of major distortions). It's just the hiring that's the problem. Economy isn't jobs, it's what being made with people doing the jobs.
As for me, i consider myself retired - maybe temporary if good offers come about, but i'm ok if this is permanent, too. Working on my own startup but it's a moonshot, it's unlikely to work, so a healthy way to look at it is that it's a hobby.

anovikov

Helgindy besides, even the hiring seems to be OK: unemployment isn't high anywhere and is not visibly growing. It's just that offshore coding seems to be out of vogue for tax reasons (OBBBA) and because of LLMs.

JessicaKay

I signed two new contracts on Upwork within the past two weeks. The clients are professional, pay well, and the projects are interesting. I don't think Upwork is dead but to each their own!

It's always smart to diversify income streams, so I actually did start a digital product business almost 2 years ago. Last month it brought in a whopping $33, which isn't much but it pays my phone bill and a taco or two. I sell on Teachers Pay Teachers, but I always see people talking about Gumroad, so maybe that could be a good place to sell a digital product, too.

I'm curious to see what other people are up to!