Musings from an overworked translator

RWS in trouble? Is the AI bubble about to burst? November 2, 2025

This interesting blog post at Loekalization.com entitled The Collapse of RWS: Facts, Cash, and the Cost of Evasion was shared on the German language payment list Zahlungspraxis today. Apparently RWS is not paying its contractors.

In summary, this quote caught my attention:

"In translation, every delay has a human face. Freelancers waiting on overdue payments don’t see “working capital adjustments.” They see rent, food, and obligations. Yet what’s happening at RWS is textbook finance: the AI data economy’s dirty secret.

Clients (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) stretch payment terms from 30 days to 60 or 90. RWS promises freelancers 14. That 46-to-76-day gap must be financed by someone’s cash. When revenue stalls, that someone isn’t the company: it’s the people at the bottom of the chain.

And this isn’t just RWS’s problem; it’s the gig economy in microcosm. For years, major vendors built their empires on short-term labor and long-term promises. Now, as AI hype cools and corporate budgets tighten, the middlemen are suffocating. The collapse of RWS’s TrainAI payment pipeline isn’t an isolated failure: it’s the sound of an entire sector hitting its liquidity limit."

Interesting developments that probably surprise none of us.

It’s rough out there – do your due diligence October 27, 2025

I have a government contract coming to an end this week and am out there marketing again and applying for jobs. I found the portal Stepes.com and applied, but my profile was “disapproved” due to lack of experience in translation and lack of a relevant certification or degree. Funny, because I have 30 years of experience and an M.A. in Translation.

So I did a little Google search and found a site with recent reviews reporting they are not paying their translators. The only good reviews are from the customers.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.stepes.com

They have two good reports on Payment Practices, but they are from 2020 and 2017. So I’m glad I was disapproved, but I’m kicking myself that I even bothered applying. Be careful out there!