Upwork just stole $10k from me

Exactly the case where Bitcoin could be useful. I remember paying someone 0.6 BTC for a day's work processing a bunch of photos :) As to those sites, Fiverr proved the most convenient, hired a lot of contractors there. They accepted Bitcoin at that time, not sure about now.

What exactly would be solved by Bitcoin here ?

Bitcoin is not an escrow, and crypto escrow is a joke for contracting - by the time you deliver the crypto value could be off insanely.

I don't see how Bitcoin can fix terrible customer support issues. The problem here is that either:

a) OP is stuck in a cycle where he's inquiries are managed by bots and no human is actually verifying the claims.

b) OP breached the terms in a serious way and UpWork is not being transparent as of why they are deleting his account.

UpWork offers a lot of services for both freelancers and clients (escrow, payment protection, guarantees, etc), that's why they handle the money and keep them on platform until the job are completed. Freelancers know that they will get paid if they get the job done, while clients know that they money are safe if the freelance doesn't deliver. It's a trusted middleman. I don't see how bitcoin can solve any of these issues.

Currency stability is a relative and psychological issue; for someone in Russia, people holding USD are crazy adventurers, as value of US dollar fluctuated from 120 rubles to 50 and now back to 76, all within a year. For a Bitcoiner, a USD hodler irresponsibly lost 99% of his savings within a few years.

The escrow and trust part can be handled in 1) reputation system 2) breaking the work into small parts and not risking large amounts at once.

Gitcoin is a place to go if you want to pay contractors with cryptocurrencies.

The important part is its value relative to the value of your expenses.

Actually with advanced cryptocurrencies this is false. One can build an escrow system that uses a stablecoin and does not require a third party. (It's also possible to build in different types of public arbitration if you want.)

You would need a platform for that. Coincidentally t's exactly what Upwork does.