Just lately, I have seen some major changes in different freelance sites including GAF, Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk [UPDATE: this site is now owned by GAF] etc. Some changes were good but some changes effected the money that people were making. Like at GAF, we no longer get any money if the person, who we referred, upgrades to Gold membership.
Just like this, Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk is no longer free to join. Just few days back, a person could get register at this site without any kind of fee, but now, it costs one pound to get register there.
First of all: why was this change being made?
According to this site support, they have to make this change in order to stop all the spam that was generated by few bad people who took the advantage of the fact that the registration was free.
This is a very common problem faced by many sites. I have seen so many sites making lot of changes just because of spamming.
So we cannot blame the freelance sites or any other sites if they stop the free registrations. If anyone is to blame then that will be the spammers and scammers all around the world who try to take advantage of free registration by committing their spam/scam activities.
Let’s talk about the effect of this change on new comers and people who already have registered at this site.
What does this change means to new comers?
All people who now want to register at Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk, will have to pay a fee [one pound]. This fee is small but for people, who do not want to invest any money to get online jobs, this fee will make it impossible to join Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk.
This is a bad news and this will effect the number of legit registrations.
The reduced registration will mean less spammers/scammers but many legit people will be forced to Not register: as many legit people want to invest no money on the internet to get online jobs.
I am still confused about one thing.
According to my affiliate stats, I have a hunch that may be Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk still have free registration option available for some or may be one country. I am not sure if this is true or not as it’s just a feeling:
The support person from Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk said that they now charge £1 for freelancers to get register. He did not mention anything about country based registration so I am not sure if the hunch I have really means anything.
One possible reason for the hunch:
May be Freelancer(dot)co(dot)uk is still free for Buyers.
I guess what I see in my affiliate stats has something to do with buyers signing up and that freelancers from all over the world [from all countries] now has to pay one pound in order to get register.
I think I should stop talking about the hunch and round up things here 
This change will have any kind of effect on freelancers who already have registered?
I am one of such people and I see no change. In fact, I didn’t knew that free registration is being discontinued until the support personal told me about it. If you already have registered then do not worry about this change, you do not have to pay this one pound fee.
