I do think freelancers spend significant amounts of time on job searching, but I’m not sure that’s evidence for “low productivity”. Productivity isn’t a function of total hours worked but rather of output delivered. The one time I engaged a designer on a freelancer marketplace, I got decent results exceptionally quickly. Another “freelancer marketplace” I make heavy use of is uber, which provides good customer experiences.
Of course, there’s a question of whether such marketplaces are good for the freelancers themselves—I tend to think so (eg that the existence of uber is better for drivers than the previous taxi medallion system) but freelancing is not a good fit for many folks.
I do think freelancers spend significant amounts of time on job searching, but I’m not sure that’s evidence for “low productivity”. Productivity isn’t a function of total hours worked but rather of output delivered. The one time I engaged a designer on a freelancer marketplace, I got decent results exceptionally quickly. Another “freelancer marketplace” I make heavy use of is uber, which provides good customer experiences.
Of course, there’s a question of whether such marketplaces are good for the freelancers themselves—I tend to think so (eg that the existence of uber is better for drivers than the previous taxi medallion system) but freelancing is not a good fit for many folks.