Implementing a new rule.

[Lotus]

There has recently been emerging a new business model in the service team industry which I highly disagree with and believe will be detrimental to the market.

This suggestion is in full reference of this thread starting from post #5. - https://www.mc-market.org/threads/350815/

It was just a little debate between me and Cal on why I disagree to this scheme, but I’ll be paraphrasing some of my points from there to here to emphasise my suggestion.

This new business model which I highly disagree with is an ‘organisation’ owning multiple service ‘teams’ which are all linked together behind the scenes. What I mean by when they are linked together behind the scenes, is that in reality under the false facade that there are multiple ‘teams’, each of them are all run by the same exact singular team.

I don’t believe I should copy and paste my entire post hence I’ll just link it. But all my strongest points against this model can be found here - https://www.mc-market.org/threads/350815/#post-3067851

To reiterate some of the points in that post. Anyone can setup the infrastructure for this multi-service team organisation model. The fact there are already so many teams in circulation is because they are fairly easy to setup. Hypothetically speaking, I can open up 10 ‘teams’ myself and have 10 advertising threads in every section of MCM. But in reality, every single ‘team’ has the same freelancers and managers behind it. They are offering the exact same service with the exact same quality with the same freelancers across multiple ‘teams’. This is abusable and there are no rules to prevent this. The amount of multiple ‘teams’ for more exposure can potentially be limitless. If abused, the whole market will just be flooded.

If you think about it, this is just a very elaborate plan to advertise the same team over and over again. It may even be on grounds to infringe the duplicated threads rule. Yes, the branding may be different for each ‘team’, but they are all connected to one central team. If an ‘organisation’ owns 5 service teams, all 5 of those service teams will offer the same quality with the same freelancers and managers backing it.

Again, this is abusable and can get out of hand if enough people start doing this. I’d like to state that I’m not against service teams itself, but this sort of duplication tactic by hiding under the pretence of an ‘organisation’ for more exposure is just wrong.
We already have an ‘organisation’ called Slashy doing this - https://gyazo.com/f44ed3d8181f3571cc6f23ec40a64999
Now we have Above pulling a similar stunt with Prime and Avast (and they plan to add more). I would not be surprised in the future if more ‘organisations’ pop up where they will abuse this tactic for multiple threads in a section for more exposure.

To conclude, I suggest a rule to regulate such activities. I’m not sure exactly what should be restricted, and it would be great if you guys can suggest some ideas. My own solution would be that users should only be allowed to maintain a single service team (this could also apply to other businesses too possibly) at any given point. This is to prevent multiple rebranded duplicates popping up which will potentially flood the market.

 

[Jayson]

Well, this is done by multiple large businesses such as Unilever and Luxottica. It helps with providing choice and publicity. If one of their businesses get attacked, the rest stay alive, helping with stability.

 

[Lotus]

Well, this is done by multiple large businesses such as Unilever and Luxottica. It helps with providing choice and publicity. If one of their businesses get attacked, the rest stay alive, helping with stability.

This is the very opposite of providing choice. I'm not sure how many times I need to repeat it. But every 'team' they will make are all the exact same, offering the same services and quality as they are run by the same freelancers and managers.

I'm going to be using an existing organization which already does this - https://gyazo.com/f44ed3d8181f3571cc6f23ec40a64999
These 3 teams, are actually just one in reality. Each of them may look different as they are branded differently, but behind the scenes they are all have the same freelancers. AboveHR is also now following suit. Prime and Avast are branded very differently, but are in fact the same team behind the scenes. And Above plans to add more teams to its roster. And more people will try to copy these two in the future with a multi-service team organization. The market will simply just be flooded.

If everything is the same behind the scenes, why would you need multiple teams? Because they want exposure. You can't create duplicate threads to flood the forum, so you would use a very elaborate way to circumvent that to get those duplicate threads down. Just think of a new name and re-theme the thread designs and you are all set for a new 'different' team. Except, really they aren't as everything behind the scenes across these multiple 'teams' are all the exact same.

If this goes into motion, many many new service team threads will open flooding the market. Little do we know that most of the service teams you are seeing are in fact just the same guys behind the scenes. That's not more choice, that's just tricking a lot of consumers into thinking there is more choice.

 

[Justis]

I would like for you to take a look at how many brands the Coca Cola company owns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_brands
You'll see tons that you don't even recognize, and many that you do, and maybe didn't even realize were owned by Coca Cola.
The point I'm trying to get across is that it's not a new practice; and making happy those who don't like seeing Coca Cola brands, isn't a job for official enforcement.

A quote from our rules:

1.7 Do not impersonate another member, person, or company, or otherwise misrepresent yourself.

1.10 Do not post content intended to mislead, lure, or shock users.

Particularly "misrepresent yourself", which was included for situations where a person/company is not impersonating an existing persona, but rather representing themselves as something other than what they are.
In the case most relevant to your suggestion, they would be in violation if they were misleading our members into believing they are a separate company, when in fact they are for all intents and purposes, the same company.

If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting, then they are violating our TOS prohibiting actions to bypass our content restrictions as well as our rules on misrepresenting yourself.
If they are misleading members through failure to clarify who they are, then they may also be in violation of 1.10

If you have grounds for believing a service team is illegitimate and misrepresentative, report them with all of your evidence and it'll be investigated. Otherwise, props to them for having the skills and contacts necessary to maintain multiple legitimate services.

I see no reason to create additional rules specific to this particular situation; and since you have no addition rules to suggest, I have nothing else to consider agreeing to.

 

[Projecki]

I would like for you to take a look at how many brands the Coca Cola company owns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_brands
You'll see tons that you don't even recognize, and many that you do, and maybe didn't even realize were owned by Coca Cola.
The point I'm trying to get across is that it's not a new practice; and making happy those who don't like seeing Coca Cola brands, isn't a job for official enforcement.

A quote from our rules:


Particularly "misrepresent yourself", which was included for situations where a person/company is not impersonating an existing persona, but rather representing themselves as something other than what they are.
In the case most relevant to your suggestion, they would be in violation if they were misleading our members into believing they are a separate company, when in fact they are for all intents and purposes, the same company.

If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting, then they are violating our TOS prohibiting actions to bypass our content restrictions as well as our rules on misrepresenting yourself.
If they are misleading members through failure to clarify who they are, then they may also be in violation of 1.10

If you have grounds for believing a service team is illegitimate and misrepresentative, report them with all of your evidence and it'll be investigated. Otherwise, props to them for having the skills and contacts necessary to maintain multiple legitimate services.

I see no reason to create additional rules specific to this particular situation; and since you have no addition rules to suggest, I have nothing else to consider agreeing to.

I think the reason this is seen as an issue by Lotus is because Cal admitted to using the exact same employees and even going through the exact same discord.

In my humble opinion, this is just a loophole for having multiple threads up for what is the same exact team, just with a different mask on each time. I don't think it should be allowed.

MCM shouldn't look to real world companies for an answer to this. MCM is a forum with very specific sections to advertise your team, and is much easier to exploit than the real world when it comes to this type of situation.

 

[Cal]

Like it or not, this is the future.

From Day 1 at Above, the plan has been to expand. Operating a single team can only be viable for so long if you are looking to meet growth targets. Multi-team network is the way of the future. Recently we had an issue with the Slashy brand. During this issue, the concept of a multi-team network was brought up a lot, and where the idea was from. During this situation, I had 4 individual users, of varying degrees of credibility all come to me saying that they came up with the idea for a multi-team hub and spoke model. Not only is it clear that they didn't, someone did that two hundred years ago or so, but it shows that everyone with big goals sees this as the future.

The Hub and Spoke model has been seen time and time again on this platform. First starting with a singular user offering building services, then a partnership, then a team. Then that team started working on more things, maybe graphic design and builds, then Service Teams like Prime and Minecript came along offering the whole suite. Departmentalization is a fundamental principal of big business. An executive can't sell the product, can't answer support tickets, can't do the taxes if they want to expand. That is why departments are formed, it starts small maybe a team of 3 people like when I started with my GoldSetups brand.

Every person on this platform wants to become more. That is why you get a partner, that is why you get sales reps, that is why you make a service team, that is why you make parent company, that is why you make a network of service teams, and so on and so forth. The only thing putting a rule against this will do is make people like me look elsewhere. A rule like this will only make it more difficult for people with growth in mind to grow. Growth is not something that people can easily restrict with rules and regulations. It will happen no matter what, you can either let that growth happen naturally, and nurture it to what it could be. You may also block it, and watch as it goes around whatever walls you put up, and continues on it's upward path.

The hub and spoke model is a principal of many industries because it's cheap, it works, and it's very effective. Taking away that will just lead to developments elsewhere, likely outside the borders of MC-Market, which not only hurts the platform, but makes it more difficult for those on it to grow.

 

[Landon]

I think the reason this is seen as an issue by Lotus is because Cal admitted to using the exact same employees and even going through the exact same discord.

"If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting"

I guarantee you there is one freelancer working at every major service team. Does that mean every major service team is in violation because they share a freelancer? No. Every service team offers the same services, does that make every service team in violation because they are offering essentially the same thing just using different names? No.

I see the point you're trying to get at, but the idea of service teams in itself is already a monopoly. Nothing makes them unique, nothing at all. They all share the same freelancers (it varies, but majority is the same people) and all offer the same services.

 

[Projecki]

"If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting"

I guarantee you there is one freelancer working at every major service team. Does that mean every major service team is in violation because they share a freelancer? No.

You've straw maned my argument.

I never disagreed with Justis. I stated that I thought the same exact team with the exact same members having multiple threads with the excuse "they have different names and colorzz!" is a loophole.

Which it is.[DOUBLEPOST=1528768001][/DOUBLEPOST]

An executive can't sell the product, can't answer support tickets, can't do the taxes if they want to expand. That is why departments are formed

I don't see how this logic applies when it is the exact same people doing the exact same work.

that is why you make parent company, that is why you make a network of service teams

Is it really a network of service teams when every single team has the exact same employees? You've even said that you'll be operating out of the exact same discord. It is not a network of service teams, it is a network of brands that are exactly the same. All this will do is clutter sections of the website by allowing the same exact team to have multiple threads.

A rule like this will only make it more difficult for people with growth in mind to grow. Growth is not something that people can easily restrict with rules and regulations. It will happen no matter what, you can either let that growth happen naturally, and nurture it to what it could be. You may also block it, and watch as it goes around whatever walls you put up, and continues on it's upward path.

Your logic here is fundamentally wrong.

Say all you want, but we all know that the base of this is a desire to be able to have multiple threads for the same service. All that will do is create clutter and mislead consumers.

It will make the buying experience on mcm even more difficult with all this proposed misrepresentation.

i still love yall Landon and Cal but this trend would be very anti consumer and doesn't belong on a forum with linear sections of advertisement.

 

[stephvibes]

I mean I don't know if anyone said this yet but, amazon most likely one of the biggest companies on the PLANET. Yet they keep buying and buying big companies for more and more money increasing the net worth of there company. Yes, it may seem like a monopoly but there is a difference compared to owning a market and monopoly.

 

[Court]

I work for many different service teams, 2 happen to be owned by Cal and Landon, but is that wrong? They both are owned by the same people, they have partially the same management. The freelancers are different in both. AboveHR has tons of freelancers from both service teams, allowing you to collect either service teams' commissions.

AboveHR was created to get those who are ONLY in one service team, to collect empty commissions in the other.
While at Avast, I never got any commissions because they were taken, so I started Prime where there was 0 commissions. With AboveHR, people are busy with commissions, that others can actually get some. Now I can collect commissions from either company, without having wait.

This rule is just going to cause people like Cal, Landon, and the Slashy group to move on into another way of advertising. People are against this because big companies in the market are taking over, therefore the smaller ones aren't getting commissions. Find a way to advertise, don't oppose good marketing.

~ iCourt

 

[Cal]

I don't see how this logic applies when it is the exact same people doing the exact same work.

Someone who is looking to grow can't do all the work themselves, so they expand. This analogy applies to the leaders, the ones that are making this culture shift on the platform. We see ourselves more the middlemen or managers, the people who push commissions to the freelancers rather than the individuals.

Is it really a network of service teams when every single team has the exact same employees? You've even said that you'll be operating out of the exact same discord. It is not a network of service teams, it is a network of brands that are exactly the same. All this will do is clutter sections of the website by allowing the same exact team to have multiple threads.

I cannot say the same for our competitors, however for us. Every team is run by a unique management team, uses a completely fresh set of assets, run under completely unique guiding philosophies and is administrated under it's own 1 month, 6 month and 2 year plan. They pull from the same freelancer pool, yes, but that is just about all in common these teams have in terms of how they run.

Say all you want, but we all know that the base of this is a desire to be able to have multiple threads for the same service. All that will do is create clutter and mislead consumers.

The goal of any business is to both sustain itself and grow. If I was trying to mislead and clutter, I would not put the Above logo in the signature of every single one of my accounts. I don't think anyone intends to cause harm. It is in my best interests to work in the freelancer's best interests. They are the one's that keep the lights on after all.

 

[Lotus]

I would like for you to take a look at how many brands the Coca Cola company owns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_brands
You'll see tons that you don't even recognize, and many that you do, and maybe didn't even realize were owned by Coca Cola.
The point I'm trying to get across is that it's not a new practice; and making happy those who don't like seeing Coca Cola brands, isn't a job for official enforcement.

A quote from our rules:


Particularly "misrepresent yourself", which was included for situations where a person/company is not impersonating an existing persona, but rather representing themselves as something other than what they are.
In the case most relevant to your suggestion, they would be in violation if they were misleading our members into believing they are a separate company, when in fact they are for all intents and purposes, the same company.

If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting, then they are violating our TOS prohibiting actions to bypass our content restrictions as well as our rules on misrepresenting yourself.
If they are misleading members through failure to clarify who they are, then they may also be in violation of 1.10

If you have grounds for believing a service team is illegitimate and misrepresentative, report them with all of your evidence and it'll be investigated. Otherwise, props to them for having the skills and contacts necessary to maintain multiple legitimate services.

I see no reason to create additional rules specific to this particular situation; and since you have no addition rules to suggest, I have nothing else to consider agreeing to.

Coca-Cola owns many companies, but each company produces different products for its customers. Each company specialises in its own drink. For example, I do not see Alhambra producing Coke since it isn't that company's specific product list.
This does not represent what is happening at all if we are talking about this multi-service team scheme. If Coca-Cola was doing what Slashy, Above and any other 'organisations' are doing, then it would mean that every company in Coca-Cola will be producing the same products for its customers. In this case, Alhambra will be producing Coke. Linking back to the original problem, every service team they will create won't offer a new product, but just offer the same products over and over again, just through different brandings.

As stated earlier, every service team they have will only offer the same products regardless of its multiple masks. This problem isn't comparable to the real world market and is something limited to MCM itself. I'll get back to why later on this post.

Advertising within the MCM platform is very straightforward and there really isn't that many options available for sellers compared to the real world market.
There is the free method which is to just post a thread in a section of MCM and hope people will click on it.
Then there are the paid methods to gain more exposure such as buying sticky threads or banner ads by putting it on the most viewed sections of the site.

These are pretty much the only ways you can advertise a service within this market. Real world advertising is not as linear as this site and therefore should not be compared. I doubt real world companies are dependent on the UpThread button like us.

Now, if service teams are not willing to pay for sticky threads or any form of paid advertisement to gain more exposure, it would be in their best interest to exploit the free method of advertising. Unfortunately you can't create duplicate threads, so to get around it you as Projecki so kindly said so himself - "the same exact team with the exact same members having multiple threads with the excuse "they have different names and colorzz!" is a loophole."

These new service teams do not offer new products to the market, but instead clutter it up in the form of duplicated threads. MCM is a very small market compared to the markets in the real world. And it is very easy for it to be cluttered up, messy and spammy, especially as the site grows larger and larger.

I work for many different service teams, 2 happen to be owned by Cal and Landon, but is that wrong? They both are owned by the same people, they have partially the same management. The freelancers are different in both. AboveHR has tons of freelancers from both service teams, allowing you to collect either service teams' commissions.

AboveHR was created to get those who are ONLY in one service team, to collect empty commissions in the other.
While at Avast, I never got any commissions because they were taken, so I started Prime where there was 0 commissions. With AboveHR, people are busy with commissions, that others can actually get some. Now I can collect commissions from either company, without having wait.

This rule is just going to cause people like Cal, Landon, and the Slashy group to move on into another way of advertising. People are against this because big companies in the market are taking over, therefore the smaller ones aren't getting commissions. Find a way to advertise, don't oppose good marketing.

~ iCourt

Good marketing? It is indeed good marketing as you attempt to drown out competitors and maximize exposure with the sheer amount of threads you will have at your disposal. However this is highly abusable and unfit for the site in my opinion.

 

[Justis]

Coca-Cola owns many companies, but each company produces different products for its customers. Each company specialises in its own drink. For example, I do not see Alhambra producing Coke since it isn't that company's specific product list.
This does not represent what is happening at all if we are talking about this multi-service team scheme. If Coca-Cola was doing what Slashy, Above and any other 'organisations' are doing, then it would mean that every company in Coca-Cola will be producing the same products for its customers. In this case, Alhambra will be producing Coke. Linking back to the original problem, every service team they will create won't offer a new product, but just offer the same products over and over again, just through different brandings.

As stated earlier, every service team they have will only offer the same products regardless of its multiple masks. This problem isn't comparable to the real world market and is something limited to MCM itself. I'll get back to why later on this post.

Advertising within the MCM platform is very straightforward and there really isn't that many options available for sellers compared to the real world market.
There is the free method which is to just post a thread in a section of MCM and hope people will click on it.
Then there are the paid methods to gain more exposure such as buying sticky threads or banner ads by putting it on the most viewed sections of the site.

These are pretty much the only ways you can advertise a service within this market. Real world advertising is not as linear as this site and therefore should not be compared. I doubt real world companies are dependent on the UpThread button like us.

Now, if service teams are not willing to pay for sticky threads or any form of paid advertisement to gain more exposure, it would be in their best interest to exploit the free method of advertising. Unfortunately you can't create duplicate threads, so to get around it you as Projecki so kindly said so himself - "the same exact team with the exact same members having multiple threads with the excuse "they have different names and colorzz!" is a loophole."

These new service teams do not offer new products to the market, but instead clutter it up in the form of duplicated threads. MCM is a very small market compared to the markets in the real world. And it is very easy for it to be cluttered up, messy and spammy, especially as the site grows larger and larger.



Good marketing? It is indeed good marketing as you attempt to drown out competitors and maximize exposure with the sheer amount of threads you will have at your disposal. However this is highly abusable and unfit for the site in my opinion.

All of the companies on that list owned by Coca Cola produces just 1 thing: Soft drinks
However, as you pointed out, there are always differences.
I'd like to reiterate what I said before, because the way I phrased it does not fall victim to the loophole you're suggesting exists, and I think you might have misunderstood.

they would be in violation if they were misleading our members into believing they are a separate company, when in fact they are for all intents and purposes, the same company.

If someone is selling the same product by the same people through the same services for no other purpose than to bypass our restrictions on thread posting, then they are violating our TOS prohibiting actions to bypass our content restrictions as well as our rules on misrepresenting yourself.
If they are misleading members through failure to clarify who they are, then they may also be in violation of 1.10

If you have grounds for believing a service team is illegitimate and misrepresentative, report them with all of your evidence and it'll be investigated. Otherwise, props to them for having the skills and contacts necessary to maintain multiple legitimate services.

I can assure you that simply having a chest full of different icons at your disposal is not sufficient to suggest that two threads are for different entities.
If this is not satisfactory to you; then please provide the makings of a rule which you believe would better protect our community from the abuse of what might be considered redundant/duplicate identities.
I understand your concerns, but again, I'm failing to see how your suggestion can expand upon the rules we already have in place to include something beneficial instead of unjustifiably restrictive, or vague and unclear.
If you could give me an idea of what potential rule addition(s) would satisfy your complaints to your satisfaction we can go from there.

 

[Satan]

If one of their businesses get attacked, the rest stay alive, helping with stability.

I think a flaw with this is that the owners/management of all the teams may be at cause of the illegitimate behavior of their team and thus should be held responsible as a whole, not the team individually...

E.g.
I and 2 others own Company A B and C

We do something sketchy and company A gets found out.

We should be held responsible, regardless of B and C being unaffected.

 

[Emissions]

Since MC-Market does not allow business accounts to write replies here, I will do it on my personal account.

I understand what you mean and your reasons of concern but what you have to looking into is the logistics behind the team and the reasons behind it. I cannot speak for other people that follow a similar idea to ours but what I can say is this. I have made $0 from Slashy apart from commissions that I take, if you took at some of the teams we have taken over they have/had some major issues and when we put our management in place it turned them around to be a much better team. Let me use an example, Fischer's. We bought them not knowing about the full extent of issues within the 4 walls of the team, as time went by we noticed that there were more and more issues that almost created an invisible barrier that made clients not want to deal with them as a team. A few weeks later most people are slowly starting to trust that team again and it can be classed as a 'normal' team again. I can show a lot of screenshots of what I saw in the team before and that will back my statement.

I completely understand and partially agree with what you are saying but there needs to be a line between people that do this for money and people that do this to help the community, what's to say that in a months time I don't put teams back out there away from Slashy with a better management? Because one thing here is clear, we are not open for money we are open to try to fix this massive mess and the constant toxicity in the Minecraft Service Community, if I wanted money I would be a freelancer ask any person in management that I work with.

I can vouch for the last statement made "if I wanted money I would be a freelancer ask any person in management that I work with.". He, multiple times, has told me if I want to make money, the best position to be in is a freelancer.

 

[Cal]

If you are looking for regulation, this is the result.

Example 1) Full Ban. No one can own more than 1 team.
People like me that own more than 1 team either take my teams and go sell our services on other freelancing platforms, or we sell all of our teams flooding the market. Investors will look elsewhere to invest, since they can only have 1 asset of this nature on the platform. Service teams as they are continue, though on shaky footing since there is no room for upward mobility. Many aspiring owners avoid starting teams now that they are regulated like this.
People like Lotus who just invested heavily into a single teams keep their asset protected but only by regulations, but people looking to expand must look elsewhere, away from MCM. This rule would simply knee cap the market, acquisitions and expansions are the cornerstone of modern business, trying to block that would just make people like me look elsewhere.

Example 2) Restricted. Every team must have a certain degree of autonomy
The worst of the options. This system will turn out like the reputation system just a few months ago. Too much grey area will lead to both inherent natural bias of people, where certain teams get away with pushing against this rule much more than others, and there is a huge mess of general confusion around it. Ultimately leading to this suggestion being put back up for contest.

Example 3) No Restrictions. Continue as is.
Teams like my own expand, developing both larger networks, hiring more freelancers and allowing for more to make more through the ability to market to more users. Smaller, single teams, still exist, and they continue posting revenues as is. Larger multi-team networks, increase in sales and revenues and buyout some smaller teams. Those bought out are quickly replaced by newcomers to the market looking to grow their own name. Larger teams develop programs to help smaller ones grow, bigger teams benefit from more freelancers and smaller teams enjoy increased sales and resources. MC-Market enjoys more members from the new, larger advertising budgets of larger multi-team networks.
Freelancers, sales representatives and managers all benefit from higher sales now that they can market on multiple fronts, appealing to larger audiences. MC-Market has higher membership and ad numbers now that these teams can market both on and off platform. The only downside is those who aren't apart of these multi-team networks stay in the same position they are currently in.

It is in everyone's best interest to let multi-team, hub and spoke networks onto the platform. They are a mutually beneficial formula tested time in and time out by tens of thousands of businesses that will allow for almost everyone on the platform to grow and expand.

 

[Emissions]

If you are looking for regulation, this is the result.

Example 1) Full Ban. No one can own more than 1 team.
People like me that own more than 1 team either take my teams and go sell our services on other freelancing platforms, or we sell all of our teams flooding the market. Investors will look elsewhere to invest, since they can only have 1 asset of this nature on the platform. Service teams as they are continue, though on shaky footing since there is no room for upward mobility. Many aspiring owners avoid starting teams now that they are regulated like this.
People like Lotus who just invested heavily into a single teams keep their asset protected but only by regulations, but people looking to expand must look elsewhere, away from MCM. This rule would simply knee cap the market, acquisitions and expansions are the cornerstone of modern business, trying to block that would just make people like me look elsewhere.

Example 2) Restricted. Every team must have a certain degree of autonomy
The worst of the options. This system will turn out like the reputation system just a few months ago. Too much grey area will lead to both inherent natural bias of people, where certain teams get away with pushing against this rule much more than others, and there is a huge mess of general confusion around it. Ultimately leading to this suggestion being put back up for contest.

Example 3) No Restrictions. Continue as is.
Teams like my own expand, developing both larger networks, hiring more freelancers and allowing for more to make more through the ability to market to more users. Smaller, single teams, still exist, and they continue posting revenues as is. Larger multi-team networks, increase in sales and revenues and buyout some smaller teams. Those bought out are quickly replaced by newcomers to the market looking to grow their own name. Larger teams develop programs to help smaller ones grow, bigger teams benefit from more freelancers and smaller teams enjoy increased sales and resources. MC-Market enjoys more members from the new, larger advertising budgets of larger multi-team networks.
Freelancers, sales representatives and managers all benefit from higher sales now that they can market on multiple fronts, appealing to larger audiences. MC-Market has higher membership and ad numbers now that these teams can market both on and off platform. The only downside is those who aren't apart of these multi-team networks stay in the same position they are currently in.

It is in everyone's best interest to let multi-team, hub and spoke networks onto the platform. They are a mutually beneficial formula tested time in and time out by tens of thousands of businesses that will allow for almost everyone on the platform to grow and expand.

I agree with Example 3. At this point, reading through this, you're [creator of the suggestion] wanting to stop companies thriving and expanding further. Once you've reached a single service team, where can you expand from there without leading into a multi-network service team? You can't.

After reading through this, your main point being is that the service teams that are in a multi-network are "the same", which is factually incorrect. I'll use Slashy for this example as I know them best and are currently working for them.
Slashy owns multiple service teams, including the one I founded, United Designs, and I can say personally those teams are far from the same*. Each service team has their own management and own features - United Designs especially - and offer different freelancers (with some across all networks, yes, but as management for the teams we hire for our self and our companies, not Slashy). Due to the different freelancers, overall we specialise in different aspects of the service market compared to other companies that Slashy may own.

*Some things, obviously, are the same - such as the Slashy Team (CEOs of Slashy) - but the service teams individually attempt to customise themselves as much as possible.

 

[Lotus]

It is in everyone's best interest to let multi-team, hub and spoke networks onto the platform. They are a mutually beneficial formula tested time in and time out by tens of thousands of businesses that will allow for almost everyone on the platform to grow and expand.

This suggestion is highly controversial but there are clear sides. Yes, as an owner of a service team you would feel threatened as room for expansion may be hindered. Your plan is basically to maximise exposure by dominating all the service sections of MCM. Regardless of what time of the day it is, with proper timing and arrangements, one of your many teams will be in the top 5 of every section. The more teams you have under you, the more clicks on your threads you will get overall. Basically quantity over quality. If a full ban goes ahead, you won’t be able to do all that.

However, I’m not intending to appeal to service team owners, clearly all other owners have disagreed to this thread. I just believe that all of this will be negative from a consumer standpoint. As for freelancers... there are many pros and cons for them. If service teams dominate the market, it would be highly unlikely for them to get commissions by themselves. They would be forced to join a team to get commissions, and that’s not appealing. Under the veil of service teams, it would also be hard for them to increase their individual reputation as whatever they do will only reflect on the team itself. Yes, freelancers will get commissions from the teams, but this dependency on teams isn’t a good thing. I would expect a mixed bag of reactions from freelancers to this suggestion.

The whole idea is very anti-consumer. Hence I believe this suggestion is supposed to appeal to consumers. Basically improperly favoring the interests of businesses over the interests of consumers. Consumers want individual choice, they want to navigate the forums and easily find things. When one ‘organisation’ which owns 5 teams, has threads for all of them. That’s 5 threads by one organisation in each section of MCM. The probability of getting chosen for a project greatly increases. Your casual consumers are given the false sense of feeling as if they are given a ‘choice’ on different companies/freelancers. You may say that you’ll stick the Above logo under each thread, but many first time customers do not know much about how a service team operates. Grasping the multi-service team network idea for them... let’s just drop that. For example, they may make a choice between Prime and Avast. Turns out, whatever they pick leads to the same guys, it would not have made a difference.

Additionally, currently Slashy owns 3-4 teams (even I can’t tell how many as apparently UnitedDesigns are owned by them and that was not transparent, wouldn’t be surprised if there is more involved). Above owns 2 teams to my knowledge (or more, I seriously can’t tell at this point). See, if I knew I didn’t want to involve myself with a certain freelancer pool, even me who has been part of the site for a long time (most of it was just lurking) is going to find it hard to avoid certain groups. Each ‘team’ has their own Discord server and may be branded differently, but it would be hard to trace exactly which organisations the commissions lead to. Now someone new to the site is just gonna ignore this ‘team’ and choose another ‘team’ oblivious that they are both the same behind the scenes.

In example 1, you stated if we had to sell off our additional teams, it would flood the market. Well, if you don’t sell off your additional teams, you are still flooding the market. Sure, the markets going to be cluttered into a mess both ways making it hard for consumers to find individual freelancers from personal preference by themselves. But if you sell the teams, they will be different. You may say even under an organisation, each team will be customized to to look different, but the core values will remain the same across. If the teams are sold off, new management comes over and will change how things are run, even if it’s slight. Core values change, the way how freelancers are handled are also changed leading to changes in quality etc, and that would lead to more true ‘choice’ across the market.