Ceres
New Member
Interesting post on redOrbit about virtual sweatshops:
What can you buy for 1 cent?
4 cents for 20 minutes work? What can you buy for 4 cents?
It's the first that I've heard of Amazon's Mechanical Turk website. The 'rewards' listed on the site seem ridiculously low. I think the companies are taking advantage of the fact that there are people who are so desperate for a job, they'll actually take on these low-paying jobs. What's your view?
The internet is boasting more and more jobs that allow people to work using their home computers. The only drawback, however, is the salary: as little as one U.S. cent per hour.
What can you buy for 1 cent?
Amazon now operates a site called Mechanical Turk, which is leading the way in harnessing the army of digital laborers. Internet surfers can log on to the site and browse the tens of thousands of jobs on offer from hundreds of companies. The jobs are termed ?human intelligence tasks?, or Hits.
After trying four of the companies on the list, two of the web addresses were invalid, and the other two required much digging around to find a comprehensive list of products. With two out of four Hits completed, 20 minutes? work will pay a grand total of four cents (21⁄2p).
4 cents for 20 minutes work? What can you buy for 4 cents?
It's the first that I've heard of Amazon's Mechanical Turk website. The 'rewards' listed on the site seem ridiculously low. I think the companies are taking advantage of the fact that there are people who are so desperate for a job, they'll actually take on these low-paying jobs. What's your view?