Does Amazon's Clickworker Platform Exploit Its Workers? (techrepublic.com)

500,000 people signed up for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, one of several online microjobs platforms that "let companies break jobs into smaller tasks and offer them to people across the globe," reports TechRepublic. But though these workers have trouble communicating directly with Amazon, in any given month about 20,000 of them may be active, "part of an invisible, online workforce -- one that is increasingly in demand for their vital role in helping train intelligent machines."

But are these platforms part of a disturbing new trend? Long-time Slashdot reader Paul Fernhout writes: Hope Reese and Nick Heath at TechRepublic ask: "do they democratize work or exploit the disempowered?" The article says: "Just over half of Turkers earn below the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, according to a Pew Research Center study." The article quotes people who believe "it will become increasingly common for computer systems to orchestrate labor." That trend was also was the beginning of Marshall Brain's "Manna" short story.

Comments

Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it easy to exploit independent contractors? What about Uber, aren't they contractors? I don't know if they're being exploited. But maybe the solution is to tax the rich, including rich companies, to help pay for a basic income of sorts.

Something like...
For citizens and permanent residents
$750/month/65+ year old or Social Security, whichever is higher.
$500/month/22-65 year old
$250/month/21-
With a 10% tax on AGI.
If we scrap S.N.A.P., increase those figures by $200/month/person.

Having a guaranteed income of sorts, even a minor one like this, would help independent contracts, artists, etc. People with unstable incomes.

I figure this could cost $1.2 trillion per year. Any thoughts?

Re:Basic Income

[Osgeld]

its less than minimum wage, so you just made people poorer while making people poorer paying 1.2 trillion in taxes

bravo!

Re:Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

How did I get modded down while you get modded up?

I said, "But maybe the solution is to tax the rich, including rich companies, to help pay for a basic income of sorts."

And taxing 10% of AGI isn't just taxing poor people, it taxes middle income and upper income people too. And the 10% thing is for a fairness. So if some 21-65 year old is earning $10k/year, they'll pay $1k, but they'll be getting $6k for a net of $5k for the year. Not factoring in any children they have.

My suggestion of a Basic Income as such wasn't to detract from the topic of exploitation, but offer a solution to the nature of being an independent contract, which is income instability. If said independent contractors were to receive a guaranteed income, then the desperation to work for low wages becomes less so, or more of a choice.

Re:Basic Income

[BarbaraHudson]

So just how is someone under 65 going to survive on $500 a month? Or someone over 65 on $750? You would have to also bring in universal healthcare and pharmacare with no deductibles, no co-pays, no insurance premiums. Otherwise, you've signed the death warrants of honest people, while the crooks will always manage to survive and even prosper.

And saying "death warrants" is not an exaggeration.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Remember, 26% of the US population will experience at least one depressive episode in their lifetimes. Economic distress doesn't help.

Re:Basic Income

[drinkypoo]

So Britain's system of universal, government-run healthcare drives people to suicide and... you think that's an argument for universal, government-run healthcare?

Even assuming for the moment that is true, it's irrelevant; the comparison should be whether such a system drives more people to suicide than a system in which they can't get health care at all. Right now there is an immense profit motive in fucking over the patient. For example, one acquaintance just posted about getting basically no medical care (they were denied medication because of an out of state but perfectly valid prescription, in spite of every state being constitutionally obligated to respect the laws of other states) and charged a thousand dollars for the privilege of being fucked over. You don't think that drives people to suicide? Going further into debt in exchange for not getting health care?

If you want to make some kind of meaningful comparison, be our guest. Until then, please fuck off.

Re:Basic Income

[plopez]

Based on my back of the envelop 18K will NOT take care of the basics:

rent or mortgage (in my area) 1700/month
Food/clothing/toiletries etc. 400/month
utilities 200/month
transportation (if the cars are paid for) 250/month
Health care (if there is employer matching) 800/month

so we are looking at a net 3350/month

or about 40K/year. Note there is no provision for savings or recreation in these numbers.

Re:Basic Income

[plopez]

"So Britain's system of universal, government-run healthcare drives people to suicide and... you think that's an argument for universal, government-run healthcare?"

Hey the insurance companies in the US do the same thing. They have death panels that decide who will live and who will die based on whether they decide to cover a procedure or not.

Re:Basic Income

[BarbaraHudson]

Can't you even read past your preconceptions? It's not the health care system in Britain that is driving people to suicide. It's the cutting of benefits to those who need them the most.

And as for your "as a crook, you ought to know yourself", coming from an Anonymous Coward, that's Apple-style "courageous." I have no criminal record whatsoever. That's a matter of public record, since you can't serve on a jury if you have a criminal record or are charged with a criminal offence. You can't say the same.

Re:Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I hope UBI is never enacted. The word basic gets reinterpreted every 30 seconds to mean more. You have described a middle class life style. I mean just look at your numbers. At 40k a year in costs you would be talking about 50k-60k a year in income which is basically the average income in the US for a household.

As for your costs (presuming your single)...
- Your housing cost is way high. Move somewhere cheaper.I would say $750/month is wildly more reasonable.
- Food/Toiletries, lets just put in the SNAP $200/month as a good place holder
- Clothing, $25/month should cover a minimum
- Utilities, $100/month should cover a minimum
- Transportation, this one I could buy at $250 but I would put at $200 ($50 insurance, $50 gas, $100 upkeep)
- Healthcare, depends on what changes or stays the same. Presuming the very poor get their insurance free and just have co-pays or some such lets put this at $250 a month.

This comes to $1,525 a month or 18,300 a year.

Is this the life someone should aspire to, no not really. But then that would be part of the point.

Re: Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

Both,DWP under pays massive amounts each year,often by refusing to pay legitimate claims,like pips/esa until a case has been taken to tribunal,where government loses 60-70% of cases,but you have to have the money to pay for the tribunal first,so the poorest claimants are automatically barred from appealing..
NHS doctors are becoming as bad as Americans,I have just moved from one surgery to another,3 miles apart,one has happily written me prescriptions for opioid painkillers at 112 per week for the last ten+ years,New drs claim they can only write scripts for 50 per week,have offered nothing to replace pain killers with something stronger/better,they reckon they cannot write prescription for anything like oxy-codone,unlike old surgery and all they will do is make appointment at local General hospital pain control clinic,which has a first appointment wait time of 4+ months..
So in my case,I get NO benefits at all,no esa,no pips,no income support,no jsa,we get no work I g tax benefit and although we have an under 18 child in full time education,we get no ctb either..
We survive on my partners low wage which does not allow us to save anything,therefore no tribunal,(£160 fee)
So having paid taxes for 35 years,since I was 12,built hospitals,power stations,motorways,chunnel,Thames barrage etc etc,I can get no help.
My injuries caused by a provable failure of health and safety while working for MITIE,caused by MITIE,I never received an apology,let alone any compensation..unions not interested,MP not interested,no solicitor would offer pro bono help. So now I have no money,crippled,and cannot get the pain killing that I need,if that wouldn't leave a lot of people feeling suicidal,then I'm stupid..
The uks systems are crap,just not quite as crap as America's,but ours are nothing to boast about..

Re:Basic Income

[Osgeld]

where is the rich going to get this money from? do you think it will come out of their pockets or will they stagnate wages and increase prices like they have done since the 1970's

people and companies don't get rich by giving money away (incidentally that is usually how poor people get and stay poor)

Re: Basic Income

[Half-pint HAL]

Your problems are a direct result of successive governments following a market model, breaking the NHS into trusts, making GP practices into self-contained business, and giving each fixed budgets to work with. It's part of a deliberate process of privatisation that is slowly making the NHS more and more like the dysfunctional US system.

Re:Basic Income

[plopez]

SNAP is far too low. I have seen families try to live on SNAP. I'll meet you part way at 300 for food, clothing and toiletries. Remember, kids grow fast. $750 for rent? You can not live anywhere I know of for $750 that has a decent economy. Assuming that you want people to live where jobs are let's say 1200 for some place with a decent economy in a place that isn't a death trap.

$100 is still two low for utilities. I have a family of 2 in a 1400 sq. foot house and electric, water, sewer, natural gas, trash disposal etc. run us about $200 and we get nieghborhood awards from the utilities for being thrifty.

Gas is the highest expense of a car. at 55 cents per mile if you commute 5 days a week 10 miles one way that is 11 dollars a day, 55 dollars a week, 220 dollars a month. If both parents commute $440 a month.

So we have $440 + $200 + $1200 + $300 + $800. Now lets throw in $300/month for savings.

We end up with 3240 per month or 38880 per year. Maybe it can go a little lower but 18K is sick a joke.

Re:Basic Income

[Biogoly]

Not every state accepts out of state prescriptions...I believe most do, but some do not or not without restrictions (i.e. no controlled medications). It's decided by the board of pharmacy for that individual state.

Re:Basic Income

[Sigma 7]

where is the rich going to get this money from?

Where do banks get their money from to sustain ~1% interest rates over a long period of time?

If banks are able to produce money from thin air, then I'm sure rich people can manage to do the same. Maybe the government could do so as well, nothing says free market by allowing the government to participate.

people and companies don't get rich by giving money away

Of course not. They become rich by having income. Some may get rich by doing the work themselves, and others get rich by acting as a middle-man, keeping the workers poor, and prices high. A few become rich by setting up a monopoly or oligopoly of a critical resource.

Of these rich folks, the latter two should be the focus of taxes.

Re:Basic Income

[AvitarX]

Why are you putting commuting costs into UBI?

Why should UBI include a car even?

Moving somewhere with shit economy and living off the UBI is a reasonable strategy, and it'd have the benefit of evening out the economy nationally.

Re:Basic Income

[silentcoder]

Because the goal of UBI is not to have people "live off" it, indeed it's not supposed to cover survival costs. It's to put a floor on quality of living by ensuring everybody has at LEAST a certain amount of money every month - encouraging them to increase that by earning money of their own on top. It's meant to be a fallback, a suplement. A way to get further education, money to save for a rainy day, something guaranteed so the not-already-rich can take the risk of starting a business.

It's meant to do a lot of things - but it's not meant to be a replacement for economic participation.

Now that may change. In a hypothetical future where AI and automation has taken almost all jobs - and there are simply fewer jobs that require human hands than there are people, it may have to become such - but in such a world the costs the rich bear have also gone down hugely, and their biggest problem is finding anybody to be their customers, it's to their advantage to pay enough taxes to fund a much higher UBI because without it, they won't be rich very long.

Even then you wouldn't see a complete absence of productivity in the rest of the population - you will merely see a shift away from working for money towards working for joy. Creative people will create - and not having to worry about how to buy food will only let them create more.

Re:Basic Income

[AvitarX]

I agree with what your saying there, which is why I'm baffled by plopez including the coat of commuting in the cost of living.

People gets approx 40k for the family of four but nearly six of that is both parents commuting.

But if both parents commute, they aren't living off the 18k any more, and if only one parent works making $10/hour with one car, you've hit the number he comes up with.

A UBI shouldn't include commuting costs, and it really shouldn't include living in the nice part of the country or town (plopez's rent number).

Re:Basic Income

[plopez]

If you can't commute, you can't work or look for work.

Re:Basic Income

[Coren22]

The banks lend out your money up to 10 times and earn (currently) around 3-4% on it in the mortgage market. It has always amazed me that the interest rates on savings accounts are so low considering how much money they earn from your money lending it out.

Why US minimum wage as standard?

[MightyYar]

Why the heck us the US minimum wage as a standard to compare against? These people can be anywhere in the world - better to compare to their local minimum wage... Or better yet, typical wages for this type of work in their locality.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[dinfinity]

From TFA:
"Who are Turkers? [...] About 75% are Americans, roughly 15-20% are from India, and the remaining 10% are from other countries."

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[Daemonik]

Sometimes protectionism isn't such a bad thing. Like when corporations are busy pushing wages to their absolute minimum regardless of the actual cost of living.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[BarbaraHudson]

So a skill that can bring in $80k a year in the US can legally be offshored for $15k a year? Won't help.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[ooloorie]

Sometimes protectionism isn't such a bad thing. Like when corporations are busy pushing wages to their absolute minimum regardless of the actual cost of living.

And what do you think happens when you impose protectionist measures? The cost of imports goes up and hence the cost of living. Ah, you say, but that creates American jobs and raises demand for American workers, hence increasing their wages! Correct, but what does that do? It increases the cost of living further.

You can't increase living standards or wealth through protectionism; attempts to do so are the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[drinkypoo]

You can't increase living standards or wealth through protectionism; attempts to do so are the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

You can't do it solely through protectionism. But it can be a useful tool, in the right situation. You have to have people who can do things (check) and people who can make things (check) and you have to make things other people want to buy (check.)

China isn't changing itself with protectionism alone. They also are building infrastructure. That pays dividends, eventually. They'd pay more if they let people have things.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[ShanghaiBill]

Protectionism and mercantilism rear their ugly heads again.

The heads are not rearing because they never went away. Protectionism is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong. It has always been popular among people that don't think about an issue for more than 30 seconds. Another "simple, obvious, and wrong" solution is to use coercive laws to roll back social behavior to a fantasy version of the 1950s, when queers stayed in the closet, women knew their place, and every white man had a good paying job for life. The genius of Donald Trump was to realize that there are many, many people in America that believe in both of these things. By combining the Democratic Party's knee-jerk protectionism with Republican social conservatism, he has a winning formula.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[plopez]

Why are we dragging people down? Isn't the idea to generate more wealth so everyone benefits? That's a really poor argument as economies exist only to benefit people. An economy is an artifact to get people what they want and need. If it doesn't do that the economy is broken.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[plopez]

It's not protectionism if everyone plays by the same rules.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[MightyYar]

I don't really know what you are arguing. I'm not dragging anyone down. When you travel to, say, Malaysia, you can go to a restaurant and eat the best fish head curry you've ever had with a milk tea for about $3. The same meal in the US would be about $12 or so. It is absurd to compare the salary of someone who lives in a place with a $3 lunch to someone who lives in a place with a $12 lunch.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[skids]

Expecting certain trading partners to go to a U.S. minimum wage overnight is too much.

But you're right... people can't just scream "protectionism" over every attempt to leverage trade policy for foreign social improvements.

Generally trade policy, and corporations wishing to look better or improve stability in their supply lines, will try to eek up worker conditions gradually over time.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[plopez]

"Expecting certain trading partners to go to a U.S. minimum wage overnight is too much."

Who says? Why? You just raise wages one pay period. Done and done.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[Gavagai80]

The actual cost of living and exchange rates in many countries is such that the US minimum wage would have people living luxurious lives. Make it a rule that adjusts the minimum wage to the country's cost of living and it'd be worth pondering.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[Gavagai80]

the Democratic Party's knee-jerk protectionism

Seriously, you think the party of NAFTA and the TPP is knee-jerk protectionist? Mainstream democrats aren't protectionist at all, it's just a lot of the people who normally vote for them are.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[Gavagai80]

There are two important questions here: why do Americans use it when it pays them so little, and why does the majority of the world for whom it'd represent a great pay raise not use it?

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[drinkypoo]

A useful tool for what? A minimum wage does a mix of a bunch of things: (1) it prices some labor out of the market,

We've just discussed why that's desirable. We don't want that market.

(2) it increases prices on goods and services for low-income segments,

It also increases incomes of low-income segments. The majority of minimum wage earners have dependents.

(3) it may be inflationary.

A steady rate of inflation is desirable because it devalues hoarded currency and thus encourages investment.

What it won't do is (a) redistribute more money from rich people to poor people,

Of course it will. That's exactly what it does. Are you still imagining that trickle-down economics works, and we should sit around waiting for the job creators to piss in our mouths?

or (b) increase economic output.

False. Workers can increase their spending when they are paid more, so it directly increases economic output.

Do you have anything to say which is not immediately and trivially proven false?

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[ooloorie]

A useful tool for what? A minimum wage does a mix of a bunch of things: (1) it prices some labor out of the market,

We've just discussed why that's desirable. We don't want that market.

In what way is it "desirable" that a whole group of people cannot work? That's what "priced out of the market" means.

It also increases incomes of low-income segments. The majority of minimum wage earners have dependents.

Yes, but obviously, transferring money among low-income populations at best makes some low income people better off at the expense of others.

A steady rate of inflation is desirable because it devalues hoarded currency and thus encourages investment.

Well, whether it's desirable or not, it means that the minimum wage gains are inflated away.

Of course it will. That's exactly what it does.

And how do you believe that is going to work? How do rich people ever interact with minimum wage workers? Rich people don't buy low-end products, and if companies reduce profits to pay higher wages, then rich people will simply invest in companies that don't operate in such an unprofitable market segment.

False. Workers can increase their spending when they are paid more, so it directly increases economic output.

The money that you redistribute to minimum wage earners comes from somewhere; someone else is not spending or investing it.

Do you have anything to say which is not immediately and trivially proven false?

Your "prove" that minimum wage helps workers in pretty much the same way people "prove" that perpetual motion machines work.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[drinkypoo]

In what way is it "desirable" that a whole group of people cannot work? That's what "priced out of the market" means.

Very small words for you, since I have explained this twice already: We do not want them working as slaves because that leads to a nation of slaves.

I am not going to explain again that we do not want a nation of slaves. I do not waste my time arguing with slavers.

Yes, but obviously, transferring money among low-income populations at best makes some low income people better off at the expense of others.

It also moves money from the rich to the poor. Again, small words for you. They are all you can handle.

Well, whether it's desirable or not, it means that the minimum wage gains are inflated away.

Are you really this fucking stupid or are you just a troll? You increase the minimum wage regularly, it drives inflation regularly, the poor win and the rich pay. It's that simple.

The money that you redistribute to minimum wage earners comes from somewhere; someone else is not spending or investing it.

They are already not spending or investing it. That's why the rich are not the job creators. They sit on the money as if they would only get to go to heaven if they had more zeros in their bank account. They have so much money they cannot spend it before they die. Then we live in poverty, and then we die. Inflation makes them spend it. This is not complicated. You are very simple.

Your "prove" that minimum wage helps workers in pretty much the same way people "prove" that perpetual motion machines work.

It must seem like that from your position of willful ignorance.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[silentcoder]

It's kind of odd that protectionism has such a bad rep. The US became the richest country in the world almost entirely thanks to protectionism. Adam Smith's economic ideas were rejected in his day - and for 200 years after, it was the Hamilton plan that governed US economic relations for the first few centuries and that was an extremely protectionist approach. Hell the US didn't even recognise foreign copyrights until the 1920s (while trying to pressure other countries to recognise US copyrights).
The US only became anti-protectionist after world war 2 really, when their major industrial competitors (Germany, Britain and Itally) were laid to waste by the war, and US businesses saw a huge potential for making massive profits by selling to foreigners who could no longer buy from these countries. Suddenly it made sense to stop being protectionist so you could open up those markets even if it meant opening up your own.

It's quite a valid question whether this is still true today. It could very well be that the best thing to do for the US is to go back to protectionism and nourish an economy where US companies are a lot smaller because they barely sell outside the US - but they employ Americans and sell to Americans. Then you only open up those specific markets where you cannot produce sufficiently at home (perhaps they rely on a resource the US has a shortage of).
Of course, if you do that, and you're not an asshole - then you would support other countries doing the same - including cutting out US producers in favor of local ones (whether the US can avoid being an asshole is debateable, it's happened on occasion but this is definitely not the rule).

I'm generally anti-nationalist and consider the very concept of countries and borders to be arbitrary and senseless, I have every reason to reject protectionism as being utterly incompatible with my moral beliefs - but I wouldn't be so dishonest as to pretend it didn't work.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[silentcoder]

That would achieve nothing. The goal of equalising the minimum wage is to make the company either
1) Keep the jobs at home
2) Actually HAVE a bunch of people in that poor company able to live like millionaires giving it a huge economic injection which very soon will cause it's economy to grow to match that of the US benefiting everybody there. And gain an instant economic and military ally and a whole lot of new customers for US export businesses. Which again, leads to jobs for US workers.

The long term goal- is that it shouldn't matter where you were born, the quality of life you ultimately get is determined exclusively by your talents and efforts. We're a long way from solving most of the things that mess with that, this answer does nothing about the "rich parents = rich life" problem for example - but it the median it DOES remove the difference based purely on which piece of geography two people got laid in before you even existed.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[silentcoder]

1) Because a huge amount of Americans have no solid or reliable income and are desperate for any way to buy food.
2) There are a few reasons - and they correlate with the numbers.
- Internet access is not evenly distributed over the globe. India has very good access, and so significant people can make use of the system -for them it's good money
- Europe mostly has BETTER internet than the US, as does South Korea, but those regions have low unemployment, very good labour protections and laws, and powerful unions - so there isn't many people there who don't already earn more than this.

That doesn't leave much. But most of Africa has extremely limited and highly expensive internet access. If you have a reliable home connection, especially a broadband one, you're already rich.

So who is left that might use it in Africa ? Well my family perhaps could consider it, I work full time as an engineer but my wife (by choice) stays home to look after our toddler, she could conceivably make a few dollars every few days doing mechanical turk stuff to add to our budget.... but she could make a thousand times that much for the same amount of work if she filmed herself with a vibrator and posted it on clips4sale. Mechanical Turk sure can't compete with them on remuneration.

To those for whom mechanical turk pays well - it still pays worse than a lot of other things you could do, which are more fun, and the only thing stopping people is moralism, if you don't subscribe to that particular moralism, why would you do it?

The people in Africa who may work there because they need the money and lack another source and is desperate enough to do anything to get paid - and aren't likely to make much in more lucrative internet industries (like the 50% who have penisses instead of vaginas)... well they mostly don't have any better internet than what a 10 year old cellphone with 3G can offer, and that's generally their only connected device.
If you go to an internet cafe and use their computers - the price of sitting there for an hour will exceed the profit you can make on M.T.

In Nigeria they long ago figured out that one of the most lucrative internet industries is to lie about your identity and convince other people they'll get rich if they give you money - and Nigeria is one of the two best connected countries on the continent.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[ooloorie]

I am not going to explain again that we do not want a nation of slaves. I do not waste my time arguing with slavers.

Slaves is what you want to create, by denying these people the freedom to choose work, and instead putting them on welfare. You are the slaver.

It also moves money from the rich to the poor. Again, small words for you. They are all you can handle.

You keep claiming that, with no evidence. How is it supposed to move money "from the rich to the poor"? How is that supposed to work?

You increase the minimum wage regularly, it drives inflation regularly, the poor win and the rich pay. It's that simple.

Why would the rich be affected by inflation? They don't keep a lot of their wealth in cash or treasury bills, they keep it in actual property, either directly or as shareholders.

They are already not spending or investing it. That's why the rich are not the job creators. They sit on the money as if they would only get to go to heaven if they had more zeros in their bank account.

Of course the rich are predominantly investing their wealth; that's the only place you can put large amounts of wealth and the only place you get decent returns.

Are you really this fucking stupid or are you just a troll?

You should ask yourself that question.

Exploitative by design?

[swb]

It seems like these systems are exploitative by design, even if exploitation wasn't explicitly the goal. They're designed with every possible algorithm and available data to maximize labor output at the lowest possible cost. Individual workers are operating at extreme information asymmetry and against a system which does not negotiate and only offers a take it or leave it choice.

While this reduction in labor costs may have some broader macroeconomic value, making some goods or services cheaper and more widely available it seems like the end result would ultimately just look like labor exploitation.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[Hognoxious]

The gig economy, zero-hours contracts - it's all pushing the casualisation of the workforce.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[ThatsMyNick]

I used to do turk when I was in college (years ago). All I did was academic surveys and tests for academic studies. I dont think it was anywhere close to minimum wage, but I had fun and I enjoyed doing it. Some of them will also invite me for follow up studies. I can tell for sure those researchers did not intent to exploit, nor did I felt exploited. It would good beer money.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[BarbaraHudson]

It's Amazon. Why should they treat Turkers any better than anyone else who works for them?

Re:Exploitative by design?

[khallow]

It seems like these systems are exploitative by design, even if exploitation wasn't explicitly the goal. They're designed with every possible algorithm and available data to maximize labor output at the lowest possible cost. Individual workers are operating at extreme information asymmetry and against a system which does not negotiate and only offers a take it or leave it choice.

I sure hope these systems are exploitive. Labor is only empowering when it is exploited. And what is forgotten is that workers exploit the system as well. They get money which they value more than their work. And another name for mutual exploitation is cooperation.

The information asymmetry and those algorithms aren't that extreme or that relevant. Individual would-be workers get plenty of information from such markets just from pricing and work requirements. And they have better knowledge of their personal condition and what options, including regular work, that they can do instead.

Also, take it or leave it still allows for a lot of negotiation. As I implied earlier, there are multiple potential employers out there. And if the payout isn't good enough, the potential employer will either have to offer more or just leave it. Negotiation enters the picture, if they choose not to leave it themselves.

It's really sad to see such widespread misunderstanding of labor economics. The world is becoming a vastly better place precisely because peoples' labor can and is exploited. It not only empowers people and allows them to better their lot in life, it creates more opportunities for labor-based exploitation and empowerment. There are few human activities with that kind of positive feedback.

Things like Mechanical Turk fix the very problems that you complain they have. I think it would be better to get out of the way rather than than issue a complaint that really boils down to there being desperate people. There won't be less desperate people just because we interfere with and obstruct some of the means for lessening such desperation.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[ShanghaiBill]

The gig economy, zero-hours contracts - it's all pushing the casualisation of the workforce.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Most gig-economy workers do it part-time to earn some extra income, not as their main job. Amazon Turk is an easy way to make some extra cash at home, in the evening, or while watching the kids, It is simple, unstructured work, that can be done by anyone, anywhere.

When my daughter was in high school, she earned spending money as a turker. She would do tasks in one window, while watching a movie or Youtube videos in another. Many of the tasks are mindless drone work, so the distraction didn't slow her down much. She stopped when she figured out she could make more money writing articles on Fivver, which was higher pay for higher skills.

Efforts to ban or over regulate the gig economy will likely have the effect of pushing even more jobs overseas.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[Hognoxious]

Most gig-economy workers do it part-time to earn some extra income, not as their main job.

Wasn't that the same excuse they used to pay women less?

In any case, don't you think that this will spread?

On your marks, set, go! The bottom's that way \|/

Re: Exploitative by design?

[rantrantrant]

Let's see how you feel about it when your job starts being done by exploited workers who are only doing it on the side to make some extra money to make ends meet. Exploitative labor practices eventually affect us all.

Re: Exploitative by design?

[ShanghaiBill]

Let's see how you feel about it when your job starts being done by exploited workers who are only doing it on the side to make some extra money

If they are willing to work, and need the money, it would be wrong for me to use the law to stop them from competing. I don't have a "right" to my job.

Exploitative labor practices eventually affect us all.

Over regulation and top-down control also affect us all. A government attempt to turn turkers into regular W-2 employees will likely just lead to elimination of these jobs, or offshoring. Just because you don't want this type of work, doesn't mean it isn't right for people that are stuck at home caring for an elderly parent, or have disabilities such as autism that make it hard to hold a normal job but easy to focus on detailed repetitive tasks.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[skids]

And they have better knowledge of their personal condition and what options, including regular work, that they can do instead.

On the one hand, this is why such systems are not extremely popular: many people realize their time is better spent on other endeavors rather than trying to find the rare decently-paying microjob. On the other hand, assumptions that all actors in any economic model are fully equipped to act in their own self-interest is a fundamental flaw in the philosophy that underpins a lot of these systems, and what people generally mean by "exploitation" when they apply negative connotations to it is acting on perverse incentives to keep your workforce ignorant of their own best interests or powerless to pursue them.

For systems like mturk to live up to their potential, they have to balance getting employers a good value with improving employee conditions. Simply doing the former results in the system failing as the workforce either leaves, or becomes unavailable as the lives of workers deteriorate past the point where they can work. Simply doing the latter is unattractive to employers as it makes their inventory more expensive.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[khallow]

On the one hand, this is why such systems are not extremely popular: many people realize their time is better spent on other endeavors rather than trying to find the rare decently-paying microjob. On the other hand, assumptions that all actors in any economic model are fully equipped to act in their own self-interest is a fundamental flaw in the philosophy that underpins a lot of these systems, and what people generally mean by "exploitation" when they apply negative connotations to it is acting on perverse incentives to keep your workforce ignorant of their own best interests or powerless to pursue them.

It's pretty mild for a fundamental flaw. People don't have to be perfect to take advantage of a system like Mechanical Turk.

For systems like mturk to live up to their potential, they have to balance getting employers a good value with improving employee conditions.

They do that automatically. Every transaction occurs because the employer is getting value while the employee is getting improving conditions.

Re: Exploitative by design?

[Half-pint HAL]

Exploitative labor practices eventually affect us all.

Over regulation and top-down control also affect us all. A government attempt to turn turkers into regular W-2 employees will likely just lead to elimination of these jobs, or offshoring. Just because you don't want this type of work, doesn't mean it isn't right for people that are stuck at home caring for an elderly parent, or have disabilities such as autism that make it hard to hold a normal job but easy to focus on detailed repetitive tasks.

Yes, but the existence of overregulation implies the existence of an optimal level of regulation, and wages are one place where regulation has historically worked. Before minimum wage legislation, there was unions, and before unions there were workers dying of malnutrition and exhaustion at work. This wasn't really great for anyone in society at all, and caused a lot of civil unrest.

Minimum wages sort all that out.

As for your justification, someone who's stuck at home caring for a sick relative surely deserves a chance to make enough money to eat, surely?

Re:Exploitative by design?

[Half-pint HAL]

I don't think anyone has a problem with universities having participation payments below minimum wage -- it's the commercial entities exploiting people for profit that we object to.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[QuantumFTL]

It seems like these systems are exploitative by design, even if exploitation wasn't explicitly the goal. They're designed with every possible algorithm and available data to maximize labor output at the lowest possible cost. Individual workers are operating at extreme information asymmetry and against a system which does not negotiate and only offers a take it or leave it choice.

This is by far the best comment I've ever seen regarding this sort of algorithmic labor management.

Normally I'm all for this sort of thing--my company is a client and uses it to handle large bursts of data processing quickly--but the information symmetry argument is a powerful one. Also, there doesn't seem to be a lot of competition in this space, which might otherwise ameliorate a lot of the problems induced by the "take it or leave it" bargaining approach.

The analysis provided by the article is absurd, but yours seems to lead to the inescapable conclusion that some kind of regulation is necessary to prevent blatant exploitation. Maybe just reducing information asymmetry in some way, or requiring transparency in reports available to the public on the website regarding effective wages paid to workers as a fraction of the minimum and average wages of employees in their respective countries. Surely someone can find an answer to this.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[skids]

They do that automatically.

My point is this idea is naive. To take an extreme example, what do these systems do to ensure labor input to the system is not slave labor?

Re: Exploitative by design?

[ShanghaiBill]

someone who's stuck at home caring for a sick relative surely deserves a chance to make enough money to eat, surely?

They won't have that chance if their job is regulated out of existence.

Re: Exploitative by design?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. It's always about what people "deserve" or "have a right to" at someone else's expense. Why don't I have a right to decide for myself if the pay of a particular job is worth my time? These are exactly the kind of jobs that could help low-income earners make extra cash and "get ahead" like everyone wants them to be able to.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[khallow]

To take an extreme example, what do these systems do to ensure labor input to the system is not slave labor?

Not their job. And I don't believe that is a credible problem either.

Re: Exploitative by design?

[silentcoder]

You have choices ?
Then we're not talking about you.

The laws here are to protect those who do NOT get to CHOOSE - because their only other option is to die from hunger.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[silentcoder]

Answer: nothing.
Indeed, if I wanted to kidnap a bunch of people to use as slave labour, this would be the perfect setup. Open a bunch of accounts, chain them up in front of PCs and have them working MT jobs all day while I stand behind them with a whip and all the money flows into my accounts.

Now I'm not the kind of horrible person who would ever do such a thing - but there are no shortage of people who are. In fact, there are more slaves in the world right now then were sold during the entire existence of the transatlantic slave trade ! Slavery is the third largest polluter in the world and if it was a company, it would be on of the 5 largest and most profitable companies on earth. If crime was a whole was one business, it would be 3 times larger than the combined profits of the entire fortune-500

Now of course, if you can do basic math, you realize that it's impossible for that much illegitimate money to possibly be laundered - there is only one way that this can be true: if a huge chunk of the fortune 500's profits are ALSO part of the profits of Crime Inc. The two numbers have to overlap (by 80% or more) or the system would collapse and crime would be operating at a loss.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[skids]

I did say it was an extreme example... it could happen, but given the wages MTurk pays, it might be more profitable to force your slaves to sew shoes.

There are many more subtle ways the service could become counterproductive in some regions/cultures/economies, though.

As far as what is and is not "their job," well there are certain responsibilities everyone, including corporations, share, whether or not they want to admit it. While the free market can eliminate most bad models, some of the ways they get eliminated can be completely disastrous, and in those cases, it is to everyone's benefit if other mechanisms outside the free market short circuit that before the default solution of a collapsing economy, poverty, and civil unrest kicks in.

Which is why the word "exploitation" often has negative connotations. It won't shed these by trying to institute goodspeak, only by solving the underlying issues.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[khallow]

There are many more subtle ways the service could become counterproductive in some regions/cultures/economies, though.

Well, let's see those ways then.

As far as what is and is not "their job," well there are certain responsibilities everyone, including corporations, share, whether or not they want to admit it.

And whether or not these responsibilities only exist in your head, amirite? The obvious rebuttal here is that dealing with slavery is the job of the local government not Amazon.

While the free market can eliminate most bad models, some of the ways they get eliminated can be completely disastrous, and in those cases, it is to everyone's benefit if other mechanisms outside the free market short circuit that before the default solution of a collapsing economy, poverty, and civil unrest kicks in.

Let's hear of some real world examples then rather than this vague talk.

Which is why the word "exploitation" often has negative connotations. It won't shed these by trying to institute goodspeak, only by solving the underlying issues.

Which apparently is now Amazon's unpaid job to do.

Let's go back to your first example. Slaves being forced to toil in the MTurk salt mines. Ignoring for a moment, the cost of supervising a clicking horde and providing them with computers, how exactly is Amazon to know whether a user is a slave or not? Fill out a questionnaire? "Click yes, if you are a slave and are being forced to do this job by some dude with a whip." "Click yes, if you just lied about the previous question." There's all this talk about Amazon's "responsibility", but no means for Amazon to do something about it (aside from blocking IP addresses when someone brings it up to their attention). You haven't even been able to show it is a problem. How is Amazon going to do better than you?

Second, sure, slavery and similarly coercion is a known failure mode for markets. If a market participant isn't choosing, then they, of course, aren't able to take advantage of the strengths of the market. But even then, it sometimes is better than the alternative uses for slaves who might be digging in hazardous coltan mines rather than clicking in front of a desk. Amazon could block IP addresses from known slavers, should that ever be determined, but that might not be better for the slaves!

And of course, there's the cost of the infrastructure to support MTurk slaves. They need a good connection, a decent computer, they need supervision, and the usual care. And the slaver runs the risk of having the whole effort go for naught, if the developed world gets wise to what's going on (the US or the EU can interfere with such an arrangement in more ways than just having Amazon block access). It's possible, but I don't see that it would be better than the usual uses for slaves.

Which is why the word "exploitation" often has negative connotations. It won't shed these by trying to institute goodspeak, only by solving the underlying issues.

And my point is that those connotations are usually way off the mark. After all, this thread wasn't about slaves being exploited by MTurk. It was about virtually everyone being exploited by MTurk. But those people are on MTurk by choice, meaning that they have determined that it's better than their other uses of their time.

Really bad jobs

[gweihir]

I had a look at it a while back, and the only way to get to a salary you will not starve on seems to be to do the jobs so badly and fast that they just barely get accepted. Actually following the description on what you should do will get you paid much lower than that minimum wage.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Hognoxious]

Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.

But yours is, right?

Re:Really bad jobs

[drinkypoo]

Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.
[...]
Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options?

We want to limit people's options to subject others to virtual slavery, which is what you have when people are effectively forced by economic reality to work jobs which do not pay a living wage. Any business which cannot pay a living wage deserves to fail, and leave air in the room for people who have an idea which might actually succeed without slavery. Anything else is a race to the bottom, and those never turn out well. We don't want to play that game, because we know how it ends — with a whole bunch of losers.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Luthair]

Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options? For many people it would mean that instead of earning a little extra cash on their schedule to make ends meet, they wouldn't have that option and wind up seeking government assistance and/or become homeless.

Except that these 'job's would still need to be done and the companies be forced to pay an appropriate wage.

Re:Really bad jobs

[TheSync]

Any business which cannot pay a living wage deserves to fail

So that means that any worker who cannot produce enough to earn a "living wage" deserves to be unemployed?

Re:Really bad jobs

[ranton]

Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.

But yours is, right?

Almost no one who truly believes a lucrative profession is somehow owed to them is going to have much value in life. I don't believe my job deserves a living wage without giving back my employer an equal amount of value. I found a career which pays well. If it starts not paying well, I will find a different one. If I can't find another career, I will take advantage of our society's social safety net (I also support a vastly increased welfare state).

But insinuating that people are owed a living wage simply because they are breathing is ridiculous. I want to live in a society where everyone, regardless of their mistakes, has a decent life, but that doesn't mean it has to come from their employer.

Re:Really bad jobs

[gweihir]

Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options? For many people it would mean that instead of earning a little extra cash on their schedule to make ends meet, they wouldn't have that option and wind up seeking government assistance and/or become homeless.

I don't. I am just pointing out that what is paid there is far too little to "earning a little extra cash" that counts, unless they are in a country with very, very low cost of living. Hence any perceived positive impact of these "jobs" may be mostly fictional.

Re:Really bad jobs

[gweihir]

Indeed. Well said. A race to the bottom effectively destroys a society, because everybody will necessarily only think of themselves because that is the only way to survive. That cannot work.

Re:Really bad jobs

[BlueStrat]

Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.

But yours is, right?

I've held part-time jobs that paid less than minimum wage and I liked it, as it fit my life at that time. Nobody forced me to work those sorts of jobs, it was a *choice*. I did not want another full time or nearly full time job.

People here act like employers are black-bagging workers off the street and forcing them to work at gunpoint. Both workers and employers want these kinds of jobs as options.

High minimum wage also results in workers laid off and small businesses being replaced by big-box stores that can afford higher wages. It also helps suppress new competition for established players. I operated a small business at one time (CB radio sales & service back in the CB haydays) and when the State minimum wage increased, I had to let one of my people go and cut the hours for the other. High minimum wages also shrink opportunities for entry-level workers.

Strat

Re:Really bad jobs

[Half-pint HAL]

But insinuating that people are owed a living wage simply because they are breathing is ridiculous. I want to live in a society where everyone, regardless of their mistakes, has a decent life, but that doesn't mean it has to come from their employer.

Which is different from stating that anyone who performs productive work has a right to earn enough to live off. If the work isn't of enough value to the employer to pay a living wage, then it isn't worth doing at all.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Half-pint HAL]

Any business which cannot pay a living wage deserves to fail

So that means that any worker who cannot produce enough to earn a "living wage" deserves to be unemployed?

A worker who does not earn a living wage will probably die. If you believe in economic Darwinianism to that extreme, why not cut out the middleman and just cull them all, rather than giving them a wage that sees them slowly lose their health and die prematurely anyway? Isn't a non-living wage just drawing out the suffering for them?

Re:Really bad jobs

[ranton]

If the work isn't of enough value to the employer to pay a living wage, then it isn't worth doing at all.

There is plenty of work worth doing that isn't worth minimum wage to most people. How many of your household chores would you pay someone $0.10 to do? If you're willing to do it yourself, then it is certainly worth doing. The only next step is to find the agreed upon rate in which someone is willing to do the work and you are willing to pay. Unless the government gets involved that is.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Paul Carver]

Why do you want to limit peoples' choices and options? For many people it would mean that instead of earning a little extra cash on their schedule to make ends meet, they wouldn't have that option and wind up seeking government assistance and/or become homeless.

Except that these 'job's would still need to be done and the companies be forced to pay an appropriate wage.

Are you speaking from specific knowledge of specific jobs that you are paying people to do? Jobs that you'd willingly pay more for but choose not to? Or is this just an article of faith?

There are lots of things I want, that I could afford, but which I do not buy because I think the price is too high. There are also things I could do to make extra money which I don't do because I don't think there's enough money in it to be worth the loss of my time to do other things.

If you're speaking on your own behalf about jobs that you're paying people to do that you would be willing to pay more for, that's one thing. If you're claiming certain knowledge of other people's price tolerance, I think you need to do more to prove you have reliable knowledge.

Absolutely everyone who's selling anything would love to know with certainty the maximum price that buyers would be willing to pay before walking away.

Everyone who is considering buying anything has a "walk away price" whether they've consciously pondered it or not. If they do know their "walk away price" they are generally very careful not to let the seller know what it is.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Half-pint HAL]

I'll say it again -- if it's not worth a living wage to an employer, it's not worth doing. This sort of stuff reeks of Googlenomics: "but our disruptive business model doesn't work if you make us pay for what we use."

Re:Really bad jobs

[silentcoder]

All you just did was prove you're a terrible businessman who can't do math.
The increase in minimum wage means all your potential customers suddenly had increased buying power. The logical thing to do would be to keep your prices the same (or cut them a little) and higher ANOTHER person - so you can produce MORE products to sell to these people who could not afford your product before. When you responded to a wage hike by firing somebody - you deprived yourself of a potential profit far bigger than his salary.

Luckily for us- empirical data proves that almost every employer in the world is smarter than you are, which is why in the real world, no moderate minimum wage increase has ever affected employment rates AT ALL - and the few studies that seem to show a minor effect - show a positive one.
In the short term the effect is nett-zero, in the medium term - it actually creates MORE jobs.

Nothing makes a business higher more staff faster than having more customers than they had yesterday.

A large hikes may cause the problems that the right always predict, but honestly we don't know since they have almost never happened - so there is virtually no empirical data we can look at to confirm if the theory holds or not.

Re:Really bad jobs

[silentcoder]

>Jobs that you'd willingly pay more for but choose not to?
That is ALL jobs.
No employer pays a penny more than they MUST for any job - which is inevitably less than they WOULD pay if they couldn't get it cheaper.

Ultimately an employer WOULD pay for a job ANY number that's less than what they make out of that labour, they want to profit of it, and profit as much as possible. But if the profit is less they don't fire the person (contrary to what they keep threatening) because only an idiot would choose "no profit at all" OVER "less profit".

Re:Really bad jobs

[ranton]

I'll say it again -- if it's not worth a living wage to an employer, it's not worth doing.

You should change your statement to "if it's not worth a living wage to an employer, the employer has no right to employ someone to do it." That is at least a cogent argument. One I disagree with, but at least it's logically sound.

Otherwise your statement means the following is true: "Paying someone to do my laundry is not worth a living wage to me, so my laundry is not worth doing. I'll have to buy new clothes I guess."

Re:Really bad jobs

[BlueStrat]

All you just did was prove you're a terrible businessman who can't do math.

No, it proves you have no clue what you're talking about. There may have been one or two customers who made minimum wage, but the vast majority made far above. I'm talking truckers back in the day when they made darned good money. The increase in minimum wage did not affect the vast majority of my customers.

And, we're talking a repair shop...does increasing minimum wage cause a flood of broken radios? Geez man, use that lump on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack!

You try to come off as sooo intellectually superior, but you actually sound like a clueless douche that has never run a business.

My lawn, off of it get!

Strat

Re:Really bad jobs

[silentcoder]

>No, it proves you have no clue what you're talking about. There may have been one or two customers who made minimum wage, but the vast majority made far above. I'm talking truckers back in the day when they made darned good money. The increase in minimum wage did not affect the vast majority of my customers.

Eeeeh Wrong.
An increase in minimum wage affects EVERYBODY's salary. Because suddenly a lot of people who were just above minimum wage are now at minimum wage and complaining about being a floor manager and earning the same as a floor sweeper - so you have to give them a raise too, but now the people above them need a raise, and so on and so forth. A minimum wage increase raises wages for all employees. The biggest difference is at the bottom of the pile but everybody benefits.

>And, we're talking a repair shop...does increasing minimum wage cause a flood of broken radios? Geez man, use that lump on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack!

No, but it does mean people who previously lacked the resources can afford to upskil and that means more people driving. The same "more customers"thing also applies to every other business - which means they are all shipping more stuff, so there is demand for more truckers, truckers being driven harder (so actually yeah - it DOES cause more broken trucks), and more of them are running.

>You try to come off as sooo intellectually superior, but you actually sound like a clueless douche that has never run a business.
I have, but then I would never be affected by minimum wage laws because I have never paid even my least valuable employee anything less than double that. Because whatever the law says, I think it's morally wrong to take advantage of another person's desperation.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Half-pint HAL]

A worker who does not earn a living wage will probably die. If you believe in economic Darwinianism to that extreme, why not cut out the middleman and just cull them all, rather than giving them a wage that sees them slowly lose their health and die prematurely anyway? Isn't a non-living wage just drawing out the suffering for them?

Or maybe they will have the time to cull the politicians who tax the crap out of everything and double the cost of living in the USA.

Workers who receive a pittance as a wage typically have no time to do anything, because they work longer and longer hours simply trying to make enough money to live off. That's the whole point of the term "wage slave" -- you end up living simply to work.

Re:Really bad jobs

[Half-pint HAL]

I'll say it again -- if it's not worth a living wage to an employer, it's not worth doing.

You should change your statement to "if it's not worth a living wage to an employer, the employer has no right to employ someone to do it." That is at least a cogent argument. One I disagree with, but at least it's logically sound.

Otherwise your statement means the following is true: "Paying someone to do my laundry is not worth a living wage to me, so my laundry is not worth doing. I'll have to buy new clothes I guess."

I agree with you to a point, but my point was "to an employer", which I meant in a somewhat abstract sense: the "employer" does nothing, only "employees" do things. You can of course be an employee of your own company.

Even then, this is all a little angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin, because in only a very small business would unwaged directors take ultra-low-value work on simply because they can't afford workers to do it.

How to build that Muslim database

[Anonymous Coward]

"You could be tagging faces in a crowd, but maybe something is being built for a malicious purpose or something," she said. "You don't know what you're doing, exactly, because there's no information."

I've seen a few stories how big software are saying they won't build a Muslim database. Well, here's how to do it - and no one will know the difference.

"Your assignment is to pick all the women with hijabs."

Your assignment is to match these photos with names."

"Your assignment is to find the men in their family"

Easy peasy and all for less than minimum wage.

Re:no matter what laws you pass

[BarbaraHudson]

People will not work for $0.00 so that you can make money. It's called "a piece of the pie." So no, the minimum wage is never zero. Of $0.00, they'll work for themselves doing the work you want them to do for $0.00, and charge less than you (because after all, you are charging enough to make a profit for yourself), so you're cut out of the loop. As well you should be.

"wage slave" wasn't supposed to be a job description.

Re:Regular Expression

[Hognoxious]

I'm puzzled as to what effect the start & end line markers have there.

A couple of things

[rsilvergun]

1. You need access to a computer and a reasonably fast internet connection to make that money. If you've got an old computer and a slow connection you won't be able to grind out enough work.

2. If you've cleared hurdle #1 you're probably in a country with higher base wages.

I'm also questioning even the $7.25 number. It's usually something put forward by the companies. It's usually calculated on the basis of superhuman capabilities or unattainable bonus or raise programs.

Re:A couple of things

[skids]

Yeah pretty much. The code used by the micro-employers usually involves something totally hacked together requiring huge horsepower to do really simple things, so an old pentium with low ram running a pirated copy of winxp on an intermittent IP connection is not going to cut it. Plus there's little to build confidence that any of it as been looked over to make sure some "employers" aren't just going around owning workers' machines with malware.

I played with this thing when it first came out mostly just to see what was going on. For a while there were a lot of jobs that really captured the spirit of something like this... for example taking street view images and typing in any street addresses you could see posted on transoms or mailboxes.

Eventually those went away, and the only thing of merit left were some audio transcription jobs, which, well, if you could make minimum wage at, you'd probably be good enough to get a day job doing it because you are a great typist... but compared to the other jobs they were reasonable. The rest was all surveys trying to milk personal demographics information out of workers, and responding to "ask jeeves"ish questions for less money than it was worth to run a single google search and paste a URL. You'd generally spend more time refreshing job lists to find something decent than actually working.

Incidentally, if you were signed up during this period, changes in the scoring mechanisms probably ruined your rating as a worker by trashing your rating using old data from before the changes, so you're no longer eligible to do just about any job.

Even if it started out at wages we would consider exploitative here, getting the market rolling in less developed markets would provide a base from which to work up from, but unless there have been drastic improvements in innovation among the work-providers and improvements in the platform, nobody on that side of the fence seems to be smart enough to figure out how to leverage this system.

I keep hearing this argument from the right

[rsilvergun]

But then I hear that if we raise minimum wage our entire economy will collapse from raising prices.

So, which is it? Are these inconsequential jobs meant for kids & retirees in need of fun money or the backbone of the US Economy? They can't be both.

Or do you just kinda want to be able to exploit people for your gain without feeling so bad about it? Oo-oo! It's the second one, right?

Re:I keep hearing this argument from the right

[itsenrique]

They have no answer for that of course.

Uh, no, that's not how it works at all

[rsilvergun]

You couldn't possibly be more wrong if you tried. Same with that drek Forbes wrote. Minimum wage sets a price floor on wages. It does this to stop a race to the bottom while forcing the rich to horde a bit less of their wealth (which has been a major problem in all of human civilization: how to pry money from the 1%'s hands and get the economy moving).

The thing is, work still needs to get done and the merchant class still wants to make money. Warren Buffet said it himself (paraphrasing) that even at 90% taxes he'd still make money. Hell, America's most productive years were when the top marginal rate was 90%. So long as we have a merchant class spreading wealth around benefits all but the ruling class.

Now, we do still have an idle rich and ruling class. We just don't like to acknowledge them (and you can be they don't like being acknowledged). Go ahead. Eliminate minimum wage. Take out worker protections, Unions and all the safe guards workers fought and died for. Welcome back to the time of kings. To the robber baron era. Thanks.

Re:Uh, no, that's not how it works at all

[AvitarX]

Are you implying that the AMA and Bar associations don't exert political power to protect their trades?

Re:Uh, no, that's not how it works at all

[ooloorie]

Are you implying that the AMA and Bar associations don't exert political power to protect their trades?

Sure they do, in the same way that unions of various forms do. But they aren't the billionaire plutocrats that "rsilvergun" is spreading FUD about.

I've got a great idea!

[plopez]

Let's just reinstate slavery!

Turks are from all over

[TheSync]

When I've had Mechanical Turk do work, I have had many workers from the US, but also some from Europe and many from India. So plenty of workers are outside the US minimum wage zone.

Re:no matter what laws you pass

[ooloorie]

People will not work for $0.00 so that you can make money.

Correct. They won't work at all. Which is why their wage is, in fact, $0. The saying "the minimum wage is $0" points out that minimum wage simply prices labor out of the market.

I'm sorry if that's a little too complex for you, but think about it a little more and you may still figure it out.

"Disturbing new trend"?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Hasn't Amazon Mechanical Turk been around for, like, 15 years?

So what's the stock market

[rsilvergun]

going to do with your money?

The 1% isn't your doctor, lawyer or architect and it sure as hell isn't your professor. You have no concept of scale. The 1% are a largely hereditary class of property owners. Not that I have any fondness for the .01% either, but just because there's a few more further up the chain doesn't mean the whole 1% isn't rotten.

As for the "publicly traded" bullshit: Very few people can afford to own enough stock to matter. Your 401k is being eaten alive by fees. It is not a pension. It is not guaranteed or even likely to support you as you age.

On the other hand we have the stock market to thank for pump and dump scams that wreck our economy every few years. Reagan allowed companies to buy back their own stock. That in turn beget CEOs paid in stock options which lead to a unending thirst for cash to buy back stock so the CEOs could make more money. That's a big part of why offshoring and vulture capitalism are a hallmark of the modern American economy. Mix in the glass steagall repeal and you got the 2008 crash that took 8 years to recover from, just in time for the fox to be put in chrge of the hen house again.

Re:So what's the stock market

[Paul Carver]

As for the "publicly traded" bullshit: Very few people can afford to own enough stock to matter. Your 401k is being eaten alive by fees. It is not a pension. It is not guaranteed or even likely to support you as you age.

If your 401k is being eaten alive by fees then you need to change your elections. If there are no low fee options offered you need to either get together with other employees to complain to your employer or else move your retirement to an IRA.

You have to actually read some of the information about each investment option available within your 401k plan, but the information is there. The fees and the historical return on investment is all available for you to review. If you're paying excessive fees, it's ultimately your own fault and within your power to change.

It took me longer that I'd like to admit to actually look at the fees on each of the options offered by my company's 401k plan and move all my money out of the high fee funds and into the low fee funds. But I did it, the low fee funds are offered by my employer's plan and I no longer have any portion of my 401k in high fee funds.

Re:So what's the stock market

[ooloorie]

The 1% are a largely hereditary class of property owners.

Nope, sorry, you need to check up on that.. "The 1%" in common parlance refers to the top 1% income earners, about $200k and above for single earners, about $400k for families. That's professional salaries, not hereditary wealth.

Very few people can afford to own enough stock to matter. Your 401k is being eaten alive by fees. It is not a pension. It is not guaranteed or even likely to support you as you age.

This isn't about "401k's". Government retirement plans, life insurance, savings, they are all backed by the stock market ("institutional investors").

Nevertheless, if your 401k is "eaten by fees", you have made bad decisions. Maybe that's due to your general lack of financial literacy.

Re:So what's the stock market

[AvitarX]

1% is a household income of around $300k

That's a lot of doctor and lawyer (households), not so much lawyers and architects.

What if these microjob firms just capped hours?

[jcims]

What if Turk just capped hours at 8 per week or something like that? Avoid any supposition that it could be used for anything more than killing time and feeding curiosity.

Re:no matter what laws you pass

[BarbaraHudson]

Your "logic" is flawed because it assumes that people aren't worth even the minimum wage. Would you work for $0.50 an hour? Even if you wanted to, you couldn't because you wouldn't be able to put in enough hours to make enough to have a place to sleep and food to eat.

Google is worse

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Because they at least pay micro-pennies for the effort? Consider on the other hand Google forcing you to solve "cute" looking recaptcha puzzles asking you to pick the food, street sign, pool chair, etc.? How much does good old Google pay you for training your future robotic overlord? Clew: it's worth less than stuff that comes out of our read end, which can be used as fertilizer.

Re:Google is worse

[BarbaraHudson]

You're always free to use something other than google - and I haven't seen a recaptcha (image or word) in a decade. You must be thinking of Facebook.

Re:Google is worse

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Good for you. The Google re-captchas can be found in other web sites that use Google's JavaScript libraries/services. Facebook's re-captchas are found mostly (only?) in Facebook-owned sites, and so are easier to avoid.

Re:Google is worse

[BarbaraHudson]

Again, haven't seen a google recaptcha in years, so I must be doing something right. Also have only seen facebook image captchas two-three times in my life on any site. Maybe they're going out of use? Or maybe I'm just lucky :-)

Re:no matter what laws you pass

[ooloorie]

Your "logic" is flawed because it assumes that people aren't worth even the minimum wage.

The value of someone's work is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it, nothing less and nothing more. It's pretty obvious that there are lots of people whose work isn't worth $15/h; that's particularly true for people just entering the workforce.

Even if you wanted to, you couldn't because you wouldn't be able to put in enough hours to make enough to have a place to sleep and food to eat.

People making below $15/h aren't elderly loners like you. They tend to be inexperienced, kids entering the workforce, spouses returning to work, etc. They live with parents, spouses, roommates. They only make minimum wage for a little while until they have learned some skills and become more valuable to the business.

What Federal rate?

[nikkipolya]

Amazon is a global company and people outside the US can work for it too. So when you say 'Federal minimum rate' which country are you referring to? I assume its the US. But USD 7.95 per hour is more than the minimum wage per day in many third world countries.