I think the biggest thing that could’ve been done differently here is hiring through a platform. If you hire through a platform there is a third-party that controls that both parties behave as they should. All agencies and freelancers have tons of incentive to do good work and make the client happy. They basically live off their reviews. Also those platforms have escrow, milestone payments and many more useful things. I know people hate the 30% extra, but in my experience those 30% are actually worth more than the 70%.
A good book on these kind of situations is "Skin in the Game - Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
WebAgency never had an incentive to make you happy…
I've hired from Upwork quite a bit, and I think the problem is that the clients have excessive power and abuse the freelancers/agencies. The platforms typically side with clients in financial disputes, and clients know how damaging a negative review is, so they force the agencies/contractors to do work beyond the contract. The result is that the talented agencies leave the platform as soon as they're successful enough to leave. The result is that the quality of agencies/contractors on Upwork is lower than what you can find outside the platform.
I understand. Good point. This indeed creates a bit of a problem. I might have not needed any work above Upwork level. However I still would avoid scenarios where agencies don’t have enough skin in the game, you said something along those lines in your article anyway.
A good book on these kind of situations is "Skin in the Game - Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
WebAgency never had an incentive to make you happy…