{"id":3549,"date":"2016-01-05T13:50:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T19:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2016-01-05T14:33:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T20:33:03","slug":"mechanical-turk-and-the-etsy-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/mechanical-turk-and-the-etsy-economy.html","title":{"rendered":"“Mechanical Turk” and the Etsy Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This is new-to-me, though not new per se<\/em>: \u00a0Amazon has a side business selling not just stuff, but online piecework. \u00a0It\u2019s called Mechanical Turk<\/a>, and I found it via a google search after reading a lament that \u201ccrowdworking\u201d sites pay workers pitiful wages and ought to be regulated under minimum wage laws. \u00a0(It\u2019s in a book which I\u2019ll tell you more about later.) The concept is simple: \u00a0Amazon connects together workers and requesters, who offer small sums of money for quick tasks, called Human Intelligence Tasks, or HITs, routine computer-work that can\u2019t be automated, such as viewing an image and typing something about that image and its contents.<\/p>\n

How much to these tasks pay? \u00a0It\u2019s hard to tell. \u00a0A reddit thread on that topic<\/a>, from 2013, didn\u2019t really come to any definitive answers. \u00a0One respondent reported earning $100\/week, working 4 hours a day, which would work out to $5 per hour if they worked weekdays only. \u00a0Another said, \u201cI do about $60-80 a week just doing it a few hours each day. I do this in addition to my normal job for spending cash. My best hours are from 9-12 during the weekdays\u201d \u2014 which works out to between $4 \u2013 5.33 per hour. \u00a0And a third said, \u201c<\/span>I think that\u2019s entirely reasonable if you devote a little time. I average $14-15 a day and make about $100-$130 in a 7 day week. \u00a0I do it for 4-5 hrs a day, unless there are a lot of good hits then I\u2019ll devote more time.\u201d \u00a0Interestingly, none of the people replying here talked in terms of an hourly rate \u2014 as if it didn\u2019t occur to them to think in those terms.<\/p>\n

There are forums for \u201cturkers\u201d to discuss the best ways of working efficiently, and especially how to find and assess the best-paying HITs,\u00a0listed elsewhere on reddit<\/a>. \u00a0And on one of those forums, on a similar \u201chow much do you earn per hour\u201d thread, a reply from 2012<\/a> said,<\/p>\n

Whenever I see job that I can work on regular (not one time survey- I don\u2019t count that) like Oscar Smith type of work I calculate how much time I need to finish one HIT and how much $$$ that would give me per hour. And I always find the same \u2013 most jobs pay from 1$-2$ per hour of focused work.<\/p>\n

If you can do, lets say 40 Oscar Smith\u2019s HIT\u2019s her hour (I can do one per minute and a half, maybe you can do more I dunno?) that can\u2019t make you more than 0.8 cents per hour or 1.5 dollars if you are trusted worker (5c x 40).<\/p>\n

Other jobs, like Claritrans transcriptions (that I likely do), Castingwords and others also give average 1,5 $ per hour as I noticed.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say that\u2019s always true. In the period of 4-9 July I did many NetMsi porn description HIT\u2019s and I made 10$-14$ per hour on them which I found amazing.<\/p>\n

I would be very pleased if you could tell me any job that I you can work on regular that pays 2.5$ + per hour. I\u2019m not saying 1.5$ per hour is bad since for 8hours of daily work I could earn 12$ (which is average daily earning in my country). It\u2019s just that I lost motivation for these low paid jobs when NetMsi went dry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How many Mechanical Turk workers are actually American, and how many, like this individual, work elsewhere, and are happy with $2.50\/hr? \u00a0According to the Amazon FAQ, workers are paid in USD, Indian Rupees, or in the form of Amazon gift cards \u2014 which means that this \u201cjob\u201d is global, and a worker\u2019s competition is global, in the same way as etsy crafters face global competition<\/a>. \u00a0American crafters must price their products with an eye towards the purchase price that their competition sets, or hope that a \u201cmade in America\u201d logo will find them enough customers willing to pay a premium. \u00a0American \u201cTurkers\u201d must be willing to accept low wages or else hope that with a higher level of skill and English fluency comes higher pay. \u00a0(What proportion of workers are American? \u00a0I can\u2019t figure this out in by google search.)<\/p>\n

Incidentally, one heavy user of Mechanical Turk are researchers at universities, who ask \u201cTurkers\u201d to take surveys, of the sort that undergraduates might have done in years past, according to this skeptical PBS article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what do you think? \u00a0Is it good? \u00a0Is it fair? \u00a0Is it a violation of minimum wage laws?<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0according to @Rochelle, on twitter, 80% of \u201cTurkers\u201d are actually American<\/a>, which surprises me, as I would have thought this would have been exactly the sort of thing that would be a draw for educated non-Americans. \u00a0But (further update from @Rochelle) Amazon stopped letting non-US workers register in 2012, though prior registrants can continue.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is new-to-me, though not new per se: \u00a0Amazon has a side business selling not just stuff, but online piecework. \u00a0It\u2019s called Mechanical Turk, and I found it via a google search after reading a lament that \u201ccrowdworking\u201d sites pay workers pitiful wages and ought to be regulated under minimum wage laws. \u00a0(It\u2019s in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246,245,48,247],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-labor-law","tag-mechanical-turk","tag-minimum-wage","tag-telecommuting"],"yoast_head":"\n"Mechanical Turk" and the Etsy Economy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is new-to-me, though not new per se: \u00a0Amazon has a side business selling not just stuff, but online piecework. 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