Alana, everything you’ve written is valid but you make the mistake of confining your discussion only to “race-to-the-bottom” freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork, when there’s far more to freelancing than doing cheap gigs. Instead of trying to get more pay out of these crappy systems, it’s much better to avoid them completely, stop competing with a global market of $5 workers, and become a real professional freelancer.