Have you ever wondered how much the freelance industry (without quotation marks) is worth? More importantly and interestingly, who or what owns it? These are legit questions to ask. And yes, my fellow freelancers, you should care a lot. Let me show you why. If It Makes Money - It Ain’t Funny, But Dead Serious! Let’s start with this jaw-dropping number. Worldwide, the total freelance platform market is estimated to be . worth $3.39 billion To give you a perspective, you’d need to take to match the estimated value of the global freelance market. I’m talking about all US hospitals, drug and cosmetic wholesaling, including the all-mighty health and medical insurance industry. the top three US industries by revenue Is the omnipresent Mr. Musk the hero of this story? Except for this meme, no. We, the freelancers, are. The World Bank estimates that are self-employed. nearly 47% of all workers worldwide The total number of freelancers globally is estimated to be 1.57 billion people out of a total global workforce of 3.38 billion. So, we own it. Right? Well… Have you heard about the “three kings” of the freelance industry? No, not these guys (great movie, definitely worth checking out), more like: , , and (com). Upwork Fiverr Freelancer Having in mind that Upwork freelancers made more than $2B in 2019, let’s first talk about the biggest shareholders of this freelance platform. ownership in UPWK / Upwork Inc represents of the company. BlackRock Inc. 6.7 percent ownership So what? BlackRock isn’t even the biggest Upwork shareholder. That’s ownership with . Vanguard Group Inc 8.46 percent ownership The “dynamics” of the Upwork ownership structure are worth mentioning: A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that implying that no single shareholder has a majority. the top 15 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% Wait? What do Upwork shareholders have to do with Upwork freelancers? It doesn’t make any sense. They (shareholders) care only about the money. So, freelancers are cool. They (freelancers) are “safe.” What could possibly go wrong or worsen for freelancers? Hmm, let’s see. Why did you think connects were no longer free ( )? Why more than 100K user accounts were purged in one single week ( )? Finally, why the tricky ? profit costs “conversion fee” was introduced Now, have a look at this: Are you surprised by the most recent changes because I’m not at all: I’ve said it many times, and I still haven’t changed my mind: As a newbie Upwork freelancer, you stand a better chance of making money by trading Upwork stocks than by using Upwork connects to find work. But, that’s just me. Let’s see what’s happening with the biggest Upwork rival - Fiverr. Fiverr (NYSE: FVRR) is owned by 46.62% institutional shareholders, 0.00% Fiverr insiders, and 53.38% retail investors. , owning 2.74M shares representing 7.33% of the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc is the largest individual Fiverr shareholder To sum it up. Behold, : the masters of the freelance universe Vanguard Group Inc Goldman Sachs Group Inc BlackRock Inc What about Freelancer dot com? When it comes to the ownership structure, the Aussies are in “a league of their own,” for the lack of a better explanation. “Freelancer is . The company's CEO Robert Barrie is the largest shareholder with 44% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 35% and 2.3% of the stock. Interestingly, the third-largest shareholder, Darren Nicholas Williams is also a Member of the Board of Directors, again, indicating strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.” not owned by hedge funds So what? Well… After doing some more digging, we found that the top 2 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions. The silver lining here is that if you don’t like something about Freelancer, you can take it directly to the members of the board of directors or the owners themselves. In other words, you can make it personal. Just Follow The Money, My Freelance Honey! The future of work is remote. But, now that you know who holds the keys to your freelance future, how do you feel about it? Let me adjust one of the simplest and well-known definitions of the market economy to suit the freelance economy: A market economy is a type of economic system where supply and demand regulate the economy, rather than government intervention. So, how about this one: A economy is a type of economic system where and regulate the economy, rather than . FREELANCE FUTURE FREELANCERS CLIENTS SHAREHOLDERS In 2019, I asked this question, here, on HackerNoon. https://hackernoon.com/is-freelance-anarchy-the-future-of-freelancing-avms32yx?embedable=true Just compare the stock prices from the 2019 article against the current Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer share prices. How come nobody talks/writes about the “decentralization” of the freelance industry? The last line I wrote almost four years ago still stands: It stands, but I’m still looking for freelance friends - who share the same feeling and vision about the new and better future of work.
