Slashdot Mirror
Freelance Platform Upwork's Opt-in Service Tracks Freelancers By Capturing Screenshots, Webcam Photos and Measuring Clicks and Keystrokes Frequency (buzzfeednews.com)
Caroline O'Donovan, reporting for BuzzFeed News: To convince workers to join the unstable and unreliable world of freelance work, startups and platforms often promise freedom and flexibility. But on the digital freelance platform Upwork, company software tracks hundreds of freelancers while they work by saving screenshots, measuring the frequency of their clicks and keystrokes, and even sometimes taking webcam photos of the workers. Upwork, which hosts "millions" of coding and design gigs, guarantees payment for freelancers, even if the clients who hired them refuse to pay. But in order to get the money, freelancers have to agree in advance to use Upwork's digital Work Diary, which counts keystrokes to measure how "productive" they are and takes screenshots of their computer screens to determine whether they're actually doing the work they say they're doing.
Upwork's tracker isn't automatically turned on for all gigs on the platform. Some freelancers like it because it guarantees payment, but others find it unnerving. [...] Upwork maintains that freelancers don't have to use the time tracker if it makes them uncomfortable. [...] But while Work Diary may be opt-in on its surface, Microsoft Research's Mary Gray said freelancers may not feel like they really have a choice.
Upwork's tracker isn't automatically turned on for all gigs on the platform. Some freelancers like it because it guarantees payment, but others find it unnerving. [...] Upwork maintains that freelancers don't have to use the time tracker if it makes them uncomfortable. [...] But while Work Diary may be opt-in on its surface, Microsoft Research's Mary Gray said freelancers may not feel like they really have a choice.
Counting keystrokes is a silly idea!!!!!!!!!! Really it is !!!!!!!!! That could never be abused!!!!!!!! No way to pad that!!!!!!!!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Working from home is great. And sometimes I even put clothes on!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
But this is in the case of when you do the work and the client _doesn't_ pay.
You get a lawyer.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
But this is in the case of when you do the work and the client _doesn't_ pay.
I get requirements and deliver working code. I just need some repository that third party experts can review to verify that the various bits of the contract have been satisfied. I suppose if I bid a job to produce half a million keystrokes, this system would help. But a monkey could probably hit the keyboard faster than I could.
Have gnu, will travel.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Heck, coding is a lot of internal thought process work, when scripting I may be doing something completely different while thinking over the problem and deciding on how I'm going to attack it. Had one I was working on last week, thought it over during the weekend, sat down and finished it early Monday morning. I agree with CHK6 about milestone-based accounting instead of time-based accounting.
Got to pound the non-round pegs into the same round holes everyone else fits into, or you're not a 'productive worker'!
People do not like having anyone looking over their shoulder all the time, whether literally or 'virtually'.
You want people to be productive? Let them know what you need done, then get out of the way and let them do it. If they consistently don't get it done, then you can replace them with someone else, but micromanaging people is just plain stupid and that's what all this surveillance of 'freelance workers' is.
I use Upwork to hire small or complicated jobs I don't want to do myself (or hire for). I've never heard of this level of tracking.
However, I only ever do fixed project bids: if you write X by Y and it meets Z quality standard, I will give you $$$. I could give two zits if you hacked it together in two hours or it took three times as long as you thought it would as long as you hit my quality standard. Not even remotely interested in knowing what else my hires were doing with their time as long as my thing was done.
Hitting space and backspace constantly is "activity" but it's not useful work. keystrokes and/or keystroke rate is a valuable metric for a typist. For a developer though, if they sit quietly for a bit and then type in the perfect line of code that works better than the naive 20 lines of code a monkey could come up with, it's good work.
No gun, but you can bet they're hoping to soak up the potential alternatives until it's the tracker or "want fries with that?"
If schemes such as these go away, the need for work to be done won't go away, it's just that the people doing the work will be offered less creepy conditions to work under.
The Upwork tracker has always done this, as did the oDesk client before the merger with Elance.
Everything about oDesk was far less buggy than the platform in place now, which is clearly developed offshore, along with seemingly everything else they can outsource.
The choice put before freelancers has always been: use the tracker or give up guaranteed payment. What's changed is Upwork's strategy, focusing on new client uptake and short-term projects. The top fee rate used to be 10%, but after the merger Upwork changed this to 20% for the first $10,000 of hourly work. Their automated job matching is feeble and basic... I'm not interested in 90% of the recommendations I get. Similarly, almost all of the interview invitations I get, which are sent by clients themselves, have little or nothing to do with my skillset.
The newest alarming thing is Upwork's account verification policy. For obtuse reasons, they will suspend your account until you verify your identity over video chat (with outsourced staff). It happened to me, and I've seen at least three Reddit posts about it.
Upwork has overall become a shitshow from the freelancer's perspective. But not because of the tracker app.
Surely the proof that you did the work would be ... the work?
I don't need to take screenshots of a bricklayer at intervals of a minute; either the wall's there (and it's up to standard - straight and level and awesome and all that) or it isn't.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That is what small claims court is for. You don't need a lawyer for that.
playmoney.me - The free alternative to paper board game play money
Ack, I'd end up looking like a real slacker -- I spend a lot of time with pen and paper, writing pseudo-code and mini-flowcharts while I explore proper solutions to coding problems.
The better question might be - why are you expecting to get paid when working for a Russian pseudonym?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's all about risk management. In regular business contracts, pay per milestone is also known as Firm Fixed Price (FFP) - the price is fixed and based on effort estimates alone. Sometimes there may be continguencies but the risk is borne by the undertaker, so the price generally reflects this. (i.e., it's cost of doing the work plus overheads, plus profit, plus risk margin).
The other method, pay by the hour is generally referred to as Time and Materials (T&M). Here the worker is paid by the hour to do the work and it can take as long as it does (up to a cap). The risk is borne by the customer and often the margins are much smaller
The thing that changes is usually changes. In FFP, changes are typically followed by a change request and a bill for new charges for the changes. On T&M, the change is usually absorbed into the contract (it just takes more time).
In addition, the first work inside FFP is agreeing to not only the requirements, but an acceptance test plan - the milestone markers will not be decided one way or another, but by passing the tests specified in the test plan. So M1 might be passing tests 1-5, M2 1-10, etc. Never accept any FFP without a test plan in place or at least have a test plan as a milestone that needs acceptance.