Freelancing websites didn't killed designing and development business, it killed it for high paid countries charging more for the same stuff, this is capitalist competition and there is no way it could have sustained.
Some American who studied in college and makes let's say level 50 websites (making up levels here) and there is some Asian dude who has worked on the same thing all his life and can do level 50 website as well, one lives in a nation that requires at least 30-40 thousand dollars a year to survive, probably more if possible while the other one needs like $10k at most, probably less as well, obviously that one will charge less for the same job. Why would anyone pick the American and pay more if they are getting the same level of service from someone much cheaper?
Freelancing platforms just turned to the world in to a big country.
You don't even need to have a work permit to work for a company that operates in a foreign country. You pay your taxes to your own government but your employer is from some other country.
Employers are happy for being able to find cheap work force, Employees are happy because they can make more money than what they usually could from their shitty jobs in their own countries.
And who's getting fucked?
Like you described, those who paid tens of thousands of dollars to get a college degree in a developed country are.
In reality, you don't need a damn college degree to build web applications... Everybody can do that. And that's what everybody's doing right now. Being able to build mobile and web apps will be as common (and as worthless) as knowing MS Excel in the near future I believe.
Maybe people should spend their time on learning the real engineering stuff instead.
this kind of freelancing job actually help a lot of unemployed programmers or coders. that is very right, they dont need to get work permit or any of that sort to be employed by foreign country as they can do their job at the comfort of their homes. employers can always choose, if that programmer is doing a shitty job, he can always hire a better one. so he has actually lots of options to choose from.
i agree that some of these devs earned their degree in reputable universities paying thousands of dollars while there are some that only learned their programming skills via net or cheap school. but everyone has the privilege to hone his skills by experience. and sometimes those skills are not learned at the four corners of your school.
those hard core programmers will not be beaten by second-rate programmers as you can already see their work via their portfolio and feedback from their clients. so if you really want to pay cheap, you will also get substandard services. still the choice is from the employers.