I’ve done freelance work before (rarely) and I get the problem as I’ve experienced businesses taking forever to pay me.

However, I think this idea misses the fact that freelancers can also be notoriously unreliable. My POV is that businesses simply will not agree to this kind of payment plan because they’re not interested in getting their card charged automatically for work that might not even be done correctly. Worst case? Maybe the freelancer is scamming them and isn’t delivering the work at all. Additionally, I think acting as the middleman has some challenges. Smart contract or not, it’s going to complicate things as the business will have to trust a third party in addition to the contractor they want to hire.