[x0x0]

That's not true at all.

We spent $100k on upwork. The slightly lower rates are nice, but the value is the contractor rep so we don't get ripped off and dealing with moving money. Note that moving money requires more than physical xfer, but also the legal structures and corps and whatever else to make sure we comply with all relevant laws, both here and abroad. The latter is not a trivial bit of work.

Without upwork, we would not be using contractors in Russia or Argentina.

[prewett]

It sounds like what you are saying is UpWork provides great value for businesses looking to hire inexpensive contractors. For US-based contractors, which I assume your parent poster might be, it doesn't sound like they provide such great value. At least, none of your reasons help the contractor any. And being in a system where they can easily be underbid by overseas labor doesn't sound so fun, either.

[pvaldes]

> Without upwork, we would not be using contractors in Russia or Argentina.

>> what you are saying is UpWork provides great value for businesses looking to hire inexpensive contractors

Or translators from Russian and Spanish, people can hire overseas for several different reasons.

[x0x0]

Good Russian talent is priced close to rural US talent. We've paid up to $60/hour.

That's not sfbay pricing obviously, but it's not what you would consider cheap.

Our primary use for contractors was spinning up engineers immediately.