http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative<p>Sorta like Vanguard funds, if you're familiar with them.<p>Fees on these freelancer platforms are very high. In some cases, 99designs takes a 40% commission, for very little work.<p>I remember awhile back there was Scriptlance, which only cost $5 to post a job.<p>Now you might say this would only benefit freelancers. But if you think about it, the job providers would benefit too. If oDesk's commission on a contract is $500, that's $500 that could have gone to increase the payout. You'd be able to attract a better candidate or have the freelancer spend more time.<p>This wouldn't be for the money of course. And taking on the entrenched competition (with their network effects) would be hard.
I think this would work but it would probably have to be country specific due to legal reasons.<p>I often wonder why this solution has not been adopted in many countries. I heard that in France this exists for example. There are probably legal barriers for this, otherwise it would have been in place a long time ago.