[benjaminwootton]

I’m sure lots of people do this.

The advantage of staying on the platform for freelancers is that they are guaranteed to get paid for correctly booked work on a predictable timeline.

For buyers, the advantage is one weekly payment to your credit card, some contractural protection and a bunch of features to support the work.

I’ve never felt the need to bypass them as a buyer, and I’ve only been approach a few times by freelancers to go direct. (My answer has been no mainly because I dislike the admin of manually paying people, checking timesheets, invoices etc.)