It's an incredibly stupid way to make a living and all the workers there should unionize and quit using sites like that.
This is how I started, I found some small projects, then me and the other person worked on other tasks, trust built and we then worked directly.
Some competition would help but the big ones buy the small competitors.
The legal systems of the workers range everywhere from, the United States, to countries where you can get your head chopped off if someone thinks you might be gay. How does all of that get reconciled? It could turn in to something that goes in to trade agreements. Then you potentially have a situation where work is just getting subcontracted out instead of contracted directly.
Market forces will ensure that there's someone in a developing country who will do the work for less than a developed country's living wage. Usually when you have to fight the market, you do it with government, but that's tough since there's no global government setting a minimum wage. So I guess it's up to each country to adopt trade policies to restrict businesses in their jurisdiction from contracting with foreign workers. I don't think there's a good answer for how to solve this. American industrial and manufacturing workers have felt this pain for a long time.
The payment part in particular is lucrative for that population.
The biggest companies will just form overseas business units and employ now "local" people in order to avoid these restrictions. Addressing this sort abuse while keeping the flow of capital reasonably free is a bit more of a challenge.
There are two assumptions here that I’d like to point out: that the US labor laws are the best worldwide, and that there is an inherent problem in other countries that would be solved if they just adhered to the US laws.
US historically had, and still has a large number of cases (either legal or just public discourse) of employers treating their employees unjustly, unfairly or with malice, despite all of the legal protection that US provides. There are always edge cases and loopholes. That said, I do believe that to an extent, the precedent based legal system of US trumps European style jurisprudence systems.
Secondly, there is no evidence that by and large the workers are treated better in the US, or that other counties are clearly inferior. International employee engagement is pretty close to the world average in most modern countries.
As another commentator said, the US can have fewer worker protections than Europe and still more than developing countries. I assume that the OP meant that US labor laws would be a minimum standard chosen because that's what US companies would have to follow if they didn't outsource, not because it's objectively the best labor standard.
No one pays taxes and it is obvious. The infrastructure is horrendous to non-existent.
Meanwhile, I have to pay taxes and fees to support my community. From the school teachers to the street workers.
Companies here benefit from it to. Companies can feel free to move their headquarters to New Delhi if they don't want to do any business in the US. Contribute or GTFO.
Freelancer.com and similar are enabling companies to escape their social responsibilities. You can't blame them but.. there should be costs/fee or tariffs associated with outsourcing.
It’s similar to a Kosher or halal restaurant demanding that any meat that they purchase must adhere to the standards they have.
The foreign workers are free to provide their services to non-American companies, just like a non kosher butcher is free to sell their meat to a different restaurant. It’s just not the rules that the US meets.
And in fact, this is true if nearly everything you purchase. Ivory cannot be sold in the US. Blood diamonds cannot be so,d there. A whole host of products need to meet certain standards to be sold in the US. The OP is suggesting the same sort of laws apply to services that apply to goods.
Historically that's why unions were created to offer a level of protection.
This is precisely what globalization agreements don't just say "ok, no tarrifs guys". Those low tarrifs are tied to mandated regulations to out a floor on "races to the bottom".
Thus globalization is necessarily a trade off between economic performance and regulatory autonomy.