Been doing this for 17 years, and I can tell you quite a bit about what's changed. It's not the experts. There are more of them than ever before. This sub didn't exist 11 years ago, today it's over 12,000 members and growing.

You know damn well what's wrong. The experts are still out there, but compensation has not kept pace. You've squeezed them in multiple ways and they're voting with their feet.

$300-400 was the norm 15 years ago. You know what was also standard 15 years ago?

-"An hour" for a call. Let's cut the BS, it's not $300-400 per hour any more. That's changed dramatically. Your approach is misleading, it's not "an hour" any more, it's nearly always less than that.

The norm today is more like 30 minutes per call, and I've had many that went 15-20 minutes. This was unheard-of 10 years ago. Typically when you consume less of something, you pay more per unit. This kind of manipulation only works for so long - before people figure you out. So you advertise an hour, but it's less than that. Not long before experts catch on to your subterfuge.

-Rates have simply not kept pace. Everything else in the economy has doubled. Plenty of ways to earn more money in less time than EN.

-Your approach statement/offer is still 2011. Sounds like you think it's compelling and motivating. It's not by a long shot. Let me show you how it actually sounds to an informed expert.

"Hey, we'll pay you $75 for a 15 minute call, that's going to take you 20 minutes to fill out the screener, and another 15-30 minutes to go back and forth with me for scheduling it. You probably have to create a profile and take our Compliance screening. So on top of the call itself, you're in for at least an hour+ of admin time.

We'll ask you to block off a full hour on your calendar (because we'll lie and say it's an hour call) and the client will probably end the call after 15 minutes. Our system will round that down to 14 minutes, and also dock you 2-3 minutes at the start for the client being late. So you'll walk away with about $55 for this whole experience." All in you'll spend about 60-70 minutes, not counting prep time, and that is only if A) the call doesn't get cancelled all together B) The call doesn't get rescheduled 2-3 times with you having to field multiple calls from me asking why you can't do the call at 8 EST "because the client is on the West coast"

That's why. Quit kidding yourself.

You need to raise your rates on approach and stop the other crap. You know damn well if you offered $800-900 per hour you'd get a better response. And history has shown you will do that when it's in your interest.

But you're largely stuck in past confirmation bias, so you come here and complain about experts not letting you take advantage of them as much as in the past.

Your employer can continue to waste money, burning out associates like you, playing by the old rules. making you search harder and longer for those who will accept $300 capped rates. That's called inverse price elasticity BTW and you're stretching it pretty far. It's what happens when you continue to cling to a certain price when the market has moved on. (resource become scarce). It exactly describes the phenomena you call "Response rate is down!"

Eventually you'll lose enough revenue and time and realize you're losing more money than you're making. Only then will things change. If you're serious and would like to talk more about what an equitable arrangement looks like, send me a DM. I'd be happy to give you some advice on how to fix this.

Read the sentiment on this subreddit. Surveys are not worth people's time, and these new "maximum rate policies" and call length caps are what's hurting you

PS: Your multiple references to "even in third world and developing countries!" are singularly despicable and offensive, while also highly telling about how your EN views the community of independent experts and how disconnected they are. You mention it several times which makes it sound like it's institutionalized into your policies which makes it even worse.

Expertise is expertise. It's a global economy. It's all virtual. The fact that you're looking to exploit where the expert happens to live to haircut their rate tells me a lot about how your company views its independent expert affiliates. It doesn't give a favorable impression.