“Mechanical Turk” and the Etsy Economy

Last updated on: January 5, 2016 at 2:33 pm by Jane the Actuary

“Mechanical Turk” and the Etsy Economy 2016-01-05T14:33:03-06:00 Jane the Actuary

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is new-to-me, though not new per se: Amazon has a side business selling not just stuff, but online piecework. It’s called Mechanical Turk, and I found it via a google search after reading a lament that “crowdworking” sites pay workers pitiful wages and ought to be regulated under minimum wage laws. (It’s in a book which I’ll tell you more about later.) The concept is simple: Amazon 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’t be automated, such as viewing an image and typing something about that image and its contents.

How much to these tasks pay? It’s hard to tell. A reddit thread on that topic, from 2013, didn’t really come to any definitive answers. One respondent reported earning $100/week, working 4 hours a day, which would work out to $5 per hour if they worked weekdays only. Another said, “I 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” — which works out to between $4 – 5.33 per hour. And a third said, “I think that’s entirely reasonable if you devote a little time. I average $14-15 a day and make about $100-$130 in a 7 day week. I do it for 4-5 hrs a day, unless there are a lot of good hits then I’ll devote more time.” Interestingly, none of the people replying here talked in terms of an hourly rate — as if it didn’t occur to them to think in those terms.

There are forums for “turkers” to discuss the best ways of working efficiently, and especially how to find and assess the best-paying HITs, listed elsewhere on reddit. And on one of those forums, on a similar “how much do you earn per hour” thread, a reply from 2012 said,

Whenever I see job that I can work on regular (not one time survey- I don’t 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 – most jobs pay from 1$-2$ per hour of focused work.

If you can do, lets say 40 Oscar Smith’s HIT’s her hour (I can do one per minute and a half, maybe you can do more I dunno?) that can’t make you more than 0.8 cents per hour or 1.5 dollars if you are trusted worker (5c x 40).

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

I can’t say that’s always true. In the period of 4-9 July I did many NetMsi porn description HIT’s and I made 10$-14$ per hour on them which I found amazing.

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’m 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’s just that I lost motivation for these low paid jobs when NetMsi went dry.

How many Mechanical Turk workers are actually American, and how many, like this individual, work elsewhere, and are happy with $2.50/hr? According to the Amazon FAQ, workers are paid in USD, Indian Rupees, or in the form of Amazon gift cards — which means that this “job” is global, and a worker’s competition is global, in the same way as etsy crafters face global competition. American crafters must price their products with an eye towards the purchase price that their competition sets, or hope that a “made in America” logo will find them enough customers willing to pay a premium. American “Turkers” must be willing to accept low wages or else hope that with a higher level of skill and English fluency comes higher pay. (What proportion of workers are American? I can’t figure this out in by google search.)

Incidentally, one heavy user of Mechanical Turk are researchers at universities, who ask “Turkers” to take surveys, of the sort that undergraduates might have done in years past, according to this skeptical PBS article.

So what do you think? Is it good? Is it fair? Is it a violation of minimum wage laws?

UPDATE: according to @Rochelle, on twitter, 80% of “Turkers” are actually American, 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. But (further update from @Rochelle) Amazon stopped letting non-US workers register in 2012, though prior registrants can continue.

Previous Post

January 4, 2016

A brief observation on minimum wage-earners and food stamps

Next Post

January 5, 2016 Recipe-blogging: Pepper-less pepper steak

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Actuarial/Retirement Issues Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Like a sheep led to slaughter, silent before shearers, this servant was pierced for our transgressions. What chapter foretells this suffering?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Isaiah 61 Isaiah 53 Isaiah 9 Isaiah 7