Fiverr: it’s bad, guys — it’s bad

Despite what we all know about bidding sites, Fiverr has outdone itself in building an unethical platform that punishes designers and customers.

In 2019, it was estimated that Fiverr is worth almost $1 billion dollars. Impressive for a gig platform ostensibly offering services for as little as five dollars, no? But look just beneath the surface and one finds that Fiverr, like most multi-million dollar enterprises, is a platform built upon the exploitation of those it claims to serve — low-quality output, high fees (Fiverr take 20% of a seller’s revenue), and a lack of oversight combine to create a platform guilty of every misdemeanour found on other bidding sites. Now in 2020, Fiverr is embracing its reputation with the launch of its “Obviously Fiverr” marketing campaign and a new logo maker that actively encourages its “logo designers” to work for free.

Like most self-respecting designers, I know that bidding sites aren’t worth it. They are refuges for the under-qualified and technicians masquerading as professionals. At best, they represent a frustrating front-page of the design industry that cheap clients seek to take advantage of. At worst, they’re unethical platforms that exploit their users. But in need of quick cash at the end of 2019, I decided to experiment with the platform for the first time in years and see how it had progressed — did it deserve its terrible reputation? Had it improved as it had opened up to more expensive services.

Fiverr is one of a number of high-profile bidding sites, its gimmick being the fallacy that its services cost five dollars. It’s part of the gig economy that is quickly overtaking traditional and stable work, forming a kind of “Airbnb or Uber type of workforce.” Fiverr and corresponding sites inhabit a strange place in the market, a part of many industries while existing outside of them all — providing a direct link between customer and designer exclusive of professional standards or regulating bodies.

On paper, the concept is an attractive one: a directory of professionals from which customers may choose a practitioner — be they designers, voice-over artists, or translators — at their leisure. Sellers can auction their services off to the highest bidder…