Here goes...
Short opinion:
Shit.
Long opinion:
Back in November 2017, I got a bit quiet with the amount of work coming in. I'm a graphic designer, I do freelance here and there, help out friends with their start ups; doing branding design for them etc. But at that time, towards the end of last year, I had no work. I needed to make ends meet so I thought to myself, "ok I should give one of these designer websites a try". So I created an account on 99designs.com.
At first I was very excited, I could see that the standard of work on there was quite good, but I could definitely match it with the best. If you are unfamiliar with how it works - basically in a nutshell, a client will post on the site what design work they require. For example if a company needs a new logo designed they will post that they need a logo, suggest colours, and add some image for inspiration. There's about a 4 day deadline, then they choose the best designs from who ever entered their competition and the winner is awarded money (standard is about $190USD), the other designs that don't win the money will get nothing. So ultimately you could do all this work, enter the comp and not get paid a thing. The winners in this are the client that commissioned the design (as they get a new logo for cheap) and the winner of the comp. And there can only be one winner, and its usually out of about 20-100 designers that can enter. So a very small percentage of people actually reap the rewards.
This is actually shit for the designers. I entered about 10 comps in my first week and go $0 because I didn't win a single comp. If I did 10 logos in real life for 10 clients I would have been paid about $300-$500 each. Now I know I can never get that many clients in a single week. But even doing one logo a week would cover my bills. So all those hours I put in, I got absolutely no money for it. That's pretty depressing.
Now, the reason I didn't win wasn't because my designs were rubbish. That's up to the client to decided. Everyone has different tastes. But there is a huge problem with this system. It's like walking into 20 doctors practices and getting 20 different treatments but only paying for the one you liked best. Ridiculous. Its killing the design industry. I am passionate about design but I also need to make money. So working for free is not cool.
Another thing about this site that really pissed me off was the competitiveness of other designers. I'm all for being competitive, but there is a right and wrong way of going about it. One example that happened to me - on one comp, I was the first one to submit a design, the next designer then submitted their design. It was a blatant rip off of my design. I thought "ok, I'll take that one as a compliment, they liked it so much they felt the need to rip it off", but then when I re-submitted my design a day later (which was just an improvement on my original design), this person lodged a complaint about my design saying I ripped off theirs! So I launched a counter complaint saying that mine was the original and they are the ones who ripped off my design. Anyway, after all that bitching and complain, a third designer, came in, ripped off both our designs, won the comp and took the prize money. What a shit show!
I lasted less than a month on this site and have removed myself for good. The fact I worked my ass off for no money, then had complaints lodge against me really turned me off. I hated the entire experience. Now if I hear people talking about getting a logo designed I warn them very strongly against using these websites including 99designs and others like Fiver and freelancer.com. They're all shit. They're turning the industry into shit, and they need to just go away.
So that is my honest opinion. If you have any thoughts on the topic please feel free to comment.
Thanks for reading