Hi there,
This is my story.
I've joined back in 2015 when the only gig price you could set was $5, hence the name Fiverr. I remember when they added the option to include Extras as a way to bump up your income as well as theirs and all the other changes since. I've been active this hole time and Fiverr has been my main source of income.
Fast forward to today when I have a wife, 2 kids, a house, 2 cars and a lot more responsibilities. I'm in the logo design industry that has a bit of experience and offers great quality, I only get up to 10 orders/month at a higher price. I've lowered my prices by 40% to remain competitive and have got more orders but at the same time my prices are about where they were in 2019 when all costs were 30-40% lower. (should also mention that taxes are way higher now)
The new rating system will force all of us who want to stay in business here to lower our prices to get more volume of work to drown bad reviews as otherwise the only option is to get no orders as a result of bad reviews. My latest 2 orders went great: first one, the client was super happy, he even mentioned leaving a 5 star review and ended up giving me 4.7 (the value for money criteria...), the second order, different client, even happier, gave me a stellar review $50tip and a 4.2 rating. Now, how is that possible? I've got 1500+reviews and never had 2 with less than 5stars one after the other, in fact I have less than 7 reviews less than 5stars in 1500. This new metric will lower our income as well as fiverrs and will allow them to curate their platform with little to no effort. The big question is how much time will Fiverr accept lower turnovers. As a result at best I will be fluctuating between TRS and level 2 and occasionally level 1. The big question is this: Is there a future on fiverr for sellers who live in developed countries?
I am optimistic by nature but the way I see it, Fiverr want to make sure they retain ONLY the sellers who offer decent quality at very low costs. My assumption is that this is the right choice to make if you wish to integrate AI as a service provider later on. I'm convinced this is going to happen and that is is only a matter of time. 10 years from now there won't be much online freelancing left but time will tell.
Have a great day everyone!
and good luck!