I think the challenge began some years ago when global freelancing platforms allowed people from weaker economies to charge rates that vastly undercut people from wealthier countries. Even more of a problem was the fact that many professionals offering "English" services were not qualified to be offering them. These two factors together meant that:

1) Clients got a deeply warped perspective of what a fair rate was.

2) Clients who received blatantly poor quality in return from the freelancers they hired probably got the impression that such gigs weren't worth investing in.

3) Clients who received blatantly poor quality and didn't realize it just continued believing that the proper rate for a "good" project was cut-throat low.

I could be wrong about all these conjectures, but I do suspect they helped pave the way for the devaluation of language work that we're seeing today. It's unfortunate, and I'm really sorry that it's affected you and your colleagues too. :(