[TadasPaplauskas]

What if there was a transparent and fixed hourly rate for all developers? Developers would be forced to compete on other aspects than price. At least it would solve the issue with devs from third-world countries bringing down prices for everyone. Ratings and reviews would mean something - no more "works great considering what I paid for it" reviews.

Also, this would serve as the natural quality control - with hourly rate being reasonably high, low-value projects and clients would simply skip the platform. Of course, this could only work for a more niche market than upwork.

If one fixed hourly rate is just too limiting, then there could be 2-3 price tiers. Just keep it simple.

This might be already implemented somewhere. In that case, does it work well?

[orcdork]

The three tiers scheme sounds interesting, this way each dev would be paid according to their ability, and would be able to get work according to their needs. I think this could be a pretty revolutionary concept as far as work goes, and what's there to lose anyway?