Taking Another Look At Fiverr
I ended 2025 on a hopeful note, mentioning seasonal work that could hopefully be turned into something more permanent. Sadly, it ended up being very temporary after all. As such, I'm back on the market for employment. I'm also trying to branch out, so I'm back on Fiverr.
Looking through the service, things are a lot different than they were 10+ years ago. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is yet to be seen, but like everywhere else, the bottomfeeders always pop up first.
I've Actually Been Here Before
A little background: I have a negative history with Fiverr. Of course, this goes back ~13 years, so of course it's really not the same service. For one, you can now charge more than $5.
I was offering custom 3D logo slides; to get a sense of what that looks like, check out "art". For how much? The only price allowable: $5, which was a steal for what I was offering. I later found out that my work was getting resold at a high markup, which came with the added benefit of making it hard for me to charge more for work outside of Fiverr.
When I learned this, I stopped completely. Not long after, I only accepted commissions through referrals, and that's generally how it's been for about a decade.
Decade Double Take
I've been very open about what's been going on. I try not to make it this site's whole thing, but it's what's currently going on in my life, so naturally, it's gonna come up. The job market has spent the last 18 months kicking the shit out of me. I'm trying more and more to think outside of the box, and having another try at Fiverr is my next step in that process.
My first attempt can be found here. A bit of a departure from art commissions, but it's something I can do right now, while also trying to cut through the more generic and template-heavy entries that pollute the service. Also, feel free to contact me and tell me all about what I'm doing wrong, and what I should be doing. I need the feedback because, well, I'm new to Fiverr and I suck at freelancing in general.
First Day
No takers yet, but I did get a lot of spam. Some of it was caught before I was able to see it, but some stuck around.
What impressed me was the sophistication of their phishing system. Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked one of the links, and it had one of those "press and hold to prove that you're human" verification challenges before asking for your account name. No password, just the name. The page was still able to parse my public-facing account info, giving it an air of legitimacy.
Editor's Note: DO NOT EVER click on phishing links. The previous claim was done on a web browser not signed into Fiverr, running on a virtual machine by someone who knows what they are doing. Do as I say, not as I do.
Of course, then it went directly into a form where you could put in your credit card number to "collect your fee". The immediate disconnect was that the currency was in pounds, but someone with tons of orders and not paying immediate attention could potentially be overwhelmed enough to fall for it. It's just another reminder to always stay vigilant.
"Does this mean your commissions are open?"
If you're reading this, then technically this site would be your referral. So, in that case, yes.
Will this bear any kind of fruit? I don't know. It's the end of the week, and I have a few solid leads for work. Hopefully they'll pan out as we go into the next week. But, I'll be honest: I'm exhausted. I'm working my ass off and getting nothing, mostly because the modern job market is now dominated by AI-powered systems that reject applications for arbitrary reasons just for simple jobs. It was easier for me to get a face-to-face remote interview for a potential job paying $30/hour than it was for me to get any kind of actual interview for a potential job paying $17/hour; the closest the latter gave me was a "recorded interview". That's not right. Everyone bitches about how "no one wants to work", without seeing that it's hard to even get a low-wage job nowadays.
Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for me. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more bullshit.
[ https://hisvirusness.com/trying-to-branch-out ]