The online freelancing space is more competitive than ever. Big players oDesk and Elance have merged, combining resources to tackle an even bigger share of the market. The dream was to establish an ongoing retainer with a client so that the endless marketing churn might, for a moment, stop, and allow the freelancer to focus on doing what they love. Most freelancers would work exclusively in their local area. The best might travel interstate, and a select few might work internationally, flying to different clients around the globe. For the most part, however, freelancing was an affair firmly grounded in the freelancer’s local community.
Today, you have tons of different options for freelancing. Thanks to the sheer number of brands seeking freelancers and the reach of the Internet, there are tons of options. Companies are starting to notice the benefits of working with freelancers. Once you get past the difficulty of finding someone who’s a good fit, the advantages are numerous. Not only do you what freelancing save on taxes and benefits for independent contractors, you’re also guaranteed a somewhat higher degree of personal investment and commitment from the freelancers themselves. Thousands of freelancers joined the movement, and freelancing magazines and blogs would publish articles about cold-calling local businesses alongside lists of the top online job sites.
The Evolution of Online Freelancing
Although you won’t be paying to commute, you may well find that your expenses go up. If you need a new laptop, a new chair, new software, or any software or tools for your freelancing, it has to come out of your profits. Plus, freelancing means you can schedule your work for the hours when you’re most alert and productive. This is a huge advantage of freelancing, especially if you have kids or caring responsibilities. You can freelance during nap time, or while your kids are at school or nursery.
Our earliest written evidence for ‘freelance’ comes from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, in which a lord refers to his paid army of ‘free lances’. As the time passed, the use of internet kept becoming more and more common. Gil Gordon, a recruiting and staffing expert, is yet another name to be mentioned here. He contributed a lot to the propagation of telecommunication. Along with Jack Nilles, he was the one to accentuate the advantages of freelancing or remote work from a scientific point of view. He even organized a national conference asserting the advantages of freelancing.
You can spot it quickly — if you’re watching.
As with any disruption that creates opportunity, there is a dark side. Freelancers previously doing a thriving trade with local businesses have been forced to lower prices to compete in a global market. Instead of being judged on price and talent against freelancers in the same town, or the same city, freelancers are now competing with the world.
This blog is part of our Freelance Friday series, where we discuss everything and anything related to freelancing. If you are a freelance writer and are looking for additional work, consider applying at Search Influence. There will be more unusual types of freelance work being sold. Fiverr has shown that there’s a market for selling skills that were previously too quirky, specialized or unique to be monetized. The future will see higher-priced marketplaces specialized around these unusual skills.
Consequently, this article gained a huge popularity in the U.S and dragged the idea of freelancing into “limelight”, whereby everyone started reviewing the pros and cons of it. Maybe not all, but it does form a very important aspect of freelancing. A beginner or a fresher enters into this field with the hope that no longer he/she will have to remain a subordinate to someone. It was only later that I realized that it was not possible. You might not work under someone but you do have restrictions.
This tutorial includes curated videos of freelancers sharing their tips and experiences. If you’re not currently a freelancer, you may find yourself becoming one in the coming years, if not by choice then by necessity. We’re advancing to an age where individuals matter just as much as corporations, and it’s got a lot of potential to help both sides of the equation.
In the middle ages, the freelancers were the soldiers who offered their services to the kings who paid them. They were mainly such soldiers who had already lost their kings in wars and now fought for whoever they wanted to. These soldiers in English were more commonly known as condottiere.
- The best might travel interstate, and a select few might work internationally, flying to different clients around the globe.
- For example, a software developer earns much more than a content writer.
- So would it be a surprise at all if we happen to live in a world where humans take up only online works and the manual things are done by robots!
- If they do choose to pay for professional services, they can sometimes turn into significant out-of-pocket expenses.
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