> Once you start to "vet the workers", then you have the problem of "how are the workers vetted"?
It's a problem but solvable. How does any employer vet applicants? It's a matter of additional process/time/cost, ideally more than covered by the higher earnings and strong demand for services.
>You get what you pay for. If you get a bargain on price, then you get lower quality or have to spend more time checking their work.
This can and cant be true. I moonlight offering marketing freelancing services. 80%+ of clients that come to me have have been sold overpriced snake-oil from boiler room marketing agencies. A big part of initial meetings is to re-establish trust in marketing. Typically I'll increase ROMI by 30%-60%, and I'm not paying myself peanuts. In the extreme I had a client last year paying ~$10k/mth to have a company list them across a handful of free directories. These business owners are experts in other areas and just don't know they are being screwed until someone more knowledgeable sees it. I'd be the same with much IT work. And if I could have a freelance service that set a quality benchmark, then I'm happy to compete on price from there. With Elance I don't know if I'm paying more for less, or less for less.
I guess this is why word of mouth and relationships are so valuable.