While sites like elance, guru, rentacoder, odesk all charge for connecting webmasters with programmers Freelr is a free alternative which is easier to use and creates a more exciting user experience. With Freelr users can interact freely with each other in an open-market, which is impossible with the other sites mentioned…..

I signed up for an account to see what it is like, and I’ve been getting so many “newsletters” I didn’t intentionally sign up for it’s not even funny.

And to make things worse, they use the “you may have unsubscribed from THAT list… but you didn’t unsubscribe from THESE lists” trick.

So, no matter how many times you unsubscribe, you’re just going to keep getting junk email from them because it’s a “different list”.

Yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky.

I say this as a manager. I would never consider monitoring any of my team members this way. And I can never conceive of why a self-respecting programmer would want to be monitored this way.

So you are comparing a manager or boss walking by to check in periodically with oDesk logging screenshots, keyboard/mouse clicks and possibly video images?

For Jason #19 - your last comment about offering the work diary….
You and I both know that the reason people use your (and other offshore services) is for cost first. If you could find a xyz developer in San Fran/NYC, etc. for $15/hr, you would go there first and/or more often. oDesk capitalizes on the fact that there are companies who want ultra cheap labor with people around the world looking for work at a rate higher than their local agencies can provide. In addition, if you think about it, while you believe your are helping those looking for remote jobs, the only ones you are helping are buyers here, oDesk, and offshore help. You are not helping developers here. That is a completely sep. topic which I won’t even go into here so as not to muddy the topic.

And once again, let me make it perfectly clear - I think there are some positive parts of oDesk - I just think there are some negatives which hurt 2-3x more as the positives help.

Regarding your question: “Is oDesk slavery?”

Our users certainly don’t think so. Here is what they had to say:
https://community.odesk.com/node/581

We find the question odd, since our goal is to give workers and employers more freedom and opportunity than they have anywhere else.

At oDesk, a worker has the freedom to:

Decide how much he wants to earn per hour - we’ve seen hourly rates ranging from $0 to $66 per hour. (The $0 per hour worker was earning equity from his buyer!)

Decide where he wants to work - many work from home, coffee shops, vacation spots, wherever they want. We’ve seen providers emigrate from one country to another without having to find a new job

Decide what he wants to work on - tired of Java? Learn Ajax and make more money. oDesk helps them figure out which skills are in demand

Decide who he wants to work for - sick of your boss? Get a new one. Hiring decisions are a two-way street. Nobody wants to work for a jerk.

Why do we offer the WorkDiary (screenshots of the worker’s activity)?

First, many buyers wouldn’t be comfortable hiring a remote worker without some assurance that work is being done.

Second, managing across time zones can be tough. oDesk makes it easier by giving buyers visibility into what the worker is doing. Buyers tell us they check the WorkDiary daily just to see what the guy was working on, and where he’s spending his time.

In any company, managers walk around the office and get to see what people are working on. The oDesk WorkDiary simply aims to give distributed teams many of the collaboration benefits of being “in the same office.”

By offering the WorkDiary, oDesk is introducing more companies to remote management, which ultimately creates more opportunity for workers looking for remote jobs.

Best,
Jason Chicola
Director of Marketing
http://www.odesk.com

re: ‘at what price’, i just don’t agree that recording of desktop snapshots + verified time logs = “we don’t trust you”. as i’ve noted several times, this is also what ensures payment for people doing work. plenty of people walk around the workplace and see what people are doing at their desks — oDesk provides the same capability, just online. i don’t see anyone calling managers who drop by your desk to see how you’re doing with a project ‘plantation owners’. that’s not a lack of trust, that’s just practicing good management oversight & tracking progress.

while you’re certainly entitled to your perspective, calling it “slavery” when providers obviously have other choices just doesn’t strike me as responsible blogging. and if you’ve heard the feedback from people who actually have used the service (both buyers & providers), i don’t think you’ll hear it described that way at all.

if you’d like to hear from other folks at oDesk and/or customers / users, you may want to visit the oDesk community to hear their reactions first-hand.

- dave mcclure

I don’t know where you get “white slavery” from - when have said anything about white or any race. I don’t appreciate those type of comments.

Slaves have no choice, correct. But if all of the “buyers/masters” are on oDesk than does the Russian programmer have a choice? And Dave, naturally you have given these workers more income, but at what price? You are clearly stating to your workers, “we do not trust you”.

And in addition, in a court of law, my logs of work and your logs of work would be counted with the same weight. So I am not sure your argument to rm/wil really hold much water.

For someone who has posted each time about your disclosure and how you only do some work once in a while, you certainly seem to be the only one from oDesk talking about these concerns. I am still waiting for someone at oDesk to talk to me.

If the programmer will strictly follow the agreement he will not use neither existing open source tools or her own pre-existing background technology.

Now weight productivity of developer who use open source libraries and one who don’t (is it possible?) . Also, weight productivity of developer who has developed some skeleton framework for projects to start from, and one who starts from scratch every time.

allen: as noted on your own blog post, several folks in addition to me have observed your comment of ‘white slavery’ is a bit over the top. check out matt romaine’s commentary for an alternate view, in addition to my own responses to your questions. in short: slaves don’t have any choice, and generally don’t get paid for their time. not the case here whatsoever.

rm/wil: if you don’t believe in the monitoring services, totally ok for you to not use it. same for any programmers who choose to use oDesk. it’s a free market, and there are plenty of alternatives that *don’t* have those features. as noted by others however, the monitoring & time logs provide benefits to both sides — buyers know people are doing work, providers have verifiable info that helps ensure payment. it seems that plenty of people with other choices have decided that those benefits offset other perceived issues of privacy. ultimately, people who do great work aren’t really that afraid of proving it… as long as they get paid well.

(full disclosure: i’ve been helping oDesk P/T with some marketing consulting since earlier this summer. i’m also a former programmer, and have worked with plenty of developers from numerous countries all over the world. whether or not the world is flat, talented geeks come in all colors and from all corners of the earth. oDesk provides a great way for those folks to get economic access and empowerment… the folks here who think they are somehow being used or abused from monitoring haven’t spoken to the people really doing the work who have doubled or tripled or increased their income tenfold using oDesk. slavery? hardly. in fact, just the opposite.)