Slashdot Mirror
Inside the Mechanical Turk Sweatshop
Barence writes "PC Pro has investigated the appalling rates of pay on offer from online services such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, YouGov surveys and affiliate schemes. One Mechanical Turk task the writer tried involved finding the website, physical addresses and phone numbers of hotels for a travel website, for only $0.01 per hotel. The details often took more than a minute to locate, which equates to a rate of around $0.60 an hour, barely enough to cover the electricity bill. Meanwhile, filling out surveys for YouGov generates a maximum income of £3 an hour, and you could end up waiting more than a year for your cheque to arrive, because the site only pays out when you reach £50. 'The result is often that those who carry out online or casual work do so for surprisingly low rates of pay, with no job security or protection from unfair terms and practices,' an employment lawyer told PC Pro."
There's other sites that are more legitimate, I think flexjobs is probably one of the more reputable ones.
I've got news for you... I have a degree in Information Systems, and I work for 3 pounds sterling an hour (of course my employer gets a discount rate since I work for them 200 hours a month guaranteed, and it's after-taxes money - Government gets 40% of what I make before taxes since I'm obviously "rich").
You think filling out YouGov forms or whatever (hadn't heard of them before) for that same amount of money isn't a good deal?
I live in Montevideo, Uruguay, and yes, I believe I will eventually make better money, but over half the programmers here make less than that.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I've seen "no prior experience required" security guard positions offering more than $15/h.
I've worked those jobs. When I was in college I thought it sounded like a great idea...
The pay rate advertised is only after your 6 month "training period" is completed -you make about half during training. In order to get the job you must complete a (short) class and get a "guard card" issued by the state -the costs of the class and state fees are deducted from your paycheck. You must also purchase a uniform -which is also deducted from your paycheck. Oh, and the $15 an hour job is for armed guard, which requires another (longer) class (deducted from your paycheck), and another state permit (fees deducted from your check), and a gun (also deducted from your check). If you don't go for the armed job, the pay rate is around $10 per hour.
With all the deductions and the lowered pay rate during "training" I owed my employer money for several months. Still, it wasn't the worst job -once you got past the idea that I was being paid to stand around (typically overnight at construction sites) with a target on my chest in a situation where it was expected I might need a gun to defend myself...
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
I can't help but think of The Onion's parody about people outsourcing their own jobs to India