[quickpost]

I'm a freelance developer and I hire people to do small, well defined jobs for me all the time from these sites (data entry, ms word to clean html conversions, etc.).

I've used elance extensively and I'm very, VERY disappointed with how the "transition" to upwork has gone. It is bordering on unusable and has added a lot of difficulty to what should be a straightforward transaction. What a disaster.

So yes, I would agree that there needs to be another competitor that is straightforward to use and definitely an opportunity here. I feel like Metcalfe's Law / network effects of the existing sites might be difficult to overcome, but its worth a shot!