The Financial Future Your Freelance Work, With New Technologies Such As Blockchain Posted on : Oct 06 - 2018

The transformation of the way we work has, largely, already begun. According to the Nasdaq, freelance work is projected to make up 43% of the US workforce by 2020. Additionally, in 2016 alone, over 40% of American workers were doing at least some of their work remotely.

On top of that, with coworking companies like WeWork now being valued at $20 billion, it’s evident the workplaces of yesterday will be much different than the workplaces of tomorrow.

According to CareerBuilder, from 2016 to 2017 alone, the US saw a 47% increase in the number of entrepreneurs who claimed they would be hiring freelancers during the calendar year. Because of the breakneck speed of today’s marketplace when it comes to innovation, these figures make sense.

Getting jobs done quickly without the need to hire a full-time employee is advantageous to companies, both from a financial perspective and in terms of legal liability. Additionally, with the rise in self-employment and the number of small to medium-sized businesses, many entrepreneurs simply lack the budget necessary to hire a skilled developer, marketer or writer on a full-time basis, making freelancers the only viable option to keep them competitive.

As a result, a handful of companies, most notably Upwork and Fiverr have risen up to capitalize on the opportunity.

These freelancing platforms allow for employers to gain access to thousands of freelancers in nearly any industry. From having a quick and seamless payment system to the transparency of a freelancer’s rates to having access to their work history and reviews, there are a number of benefits to these online marketplaces relative to hiring a freelancer outside of such a curated platform.

There are several drawbacks for freelancers on such platforms. For instance, on Upwork, the percentage is 20% on all transactions. In addition, from the standpoint of the freelancer, if their code or project lives on and continues to provide value to consumers for years to come, the freelancer only gets paid once for their work.

When looking ahead to the future of work, if the freelance economy is to reach its full potential, provide both parties involved with the utmost value and make for a stellar user experience, it’s clear more work has to be done, and utilizing blockchain technology could be a great place to start.

The shift towards distributed collective organizations grows more apparent each passing year. As freelancers begin to band together to collectively drive results for clients, the reliance on traditionally-structured organizations of workers is put into question. With the necessary technology now available for seamless, unbridled remote work to exist, overhead costs and other expenses that were once deemed obligatory are now becoming optional.

Additionally, with the successes of online platforms like Github and the necessary technology now being available, the many advantages that collaborative, crowd-curated projects have over the traditional, hierarchical structures have become evident. By having access to the collective input and wide-ranging experiences of an entire community of professionals and freelancers around the world as opposed to limiting yourself to only those in your organization, the outcome of a project will, more than likely, yield better results. View More