Does Amazon's Clickworker Platform Exploit Its Workers? (techrepublic.com) 153
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.
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.
Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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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 suc
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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)
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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.
Of course not. They become rich by having income. Some may get rich by doing the work themselves, an
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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.
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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 [theguardian.com] not [theguardian.com] an [theguardian.com] exaggeration [theguardian.com].
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide [who.int]. Remember, 26% of the US population will experience at lea
Re:Basic Income (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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"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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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 d
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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
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If you can't commute, you can't work or look for work.
Why US minimum wage as standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
"Who are Turkers? [...] About 75% are Americans, roughly 15-20% are from India, and the remaining 10% are from other countries."
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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?
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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 union
A couple of things (Score:2)
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 t
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In what way is it "desirable" that a whole group of people cannot work? That's what "priced out of the market" means.
Yes, but obviously, transferring money among low-income populations at best makes some low income people bet
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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
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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.
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?
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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.
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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-
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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
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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.
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It's not protectionism if everyone plays by the same rules.
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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.
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"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.
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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 onl
Exploitative by design? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The gig economy, zero-hours contracts - it's all pushing the casualisation of the workforce.
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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,
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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 \|/
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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 au
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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 des
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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.
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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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Exploitative by design? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 pervers
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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 eli
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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
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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
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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 absur
Really bad jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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But yours is, right?
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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 b
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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 opti
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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 sala
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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 i
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>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 manag
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Not every job is meant to be, or as a practical matter capable of being, a primary source of income to live on.
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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 bun
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
I keep hearing this argument from the right (Score:3)
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?
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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.
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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 ab
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>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
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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.
How to build that Muslim database (Score:3, Interesting)
"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.
Google is worse (Score:2)
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.
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I've got a great idea! (Score:2)
Let's just reinstate slavery!
Turks are from all over (Score:2)
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.
"Disturbing new trend"? (Score:2)
Hasn't Amazon Mechanical Turk been around for, like, 15 years?
What Federal rate? (Score:2)
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.
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"wage slave" wasn't supposed to be a job description.
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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.
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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.
People making be
Uh, no, that's not how it works at all (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
So what's the stock market (Score:2)
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
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
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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 ulti
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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.
This isn't about "401k's". Government retirem
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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.
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I'm puzzled as to what effect the start & end line markers have there.