The Internet Is Enabling a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-mechanical-turk/551192/?single_page=true

by IntronExon • 8 years ago

21 17 8 years ago

Ascetik4• 8 years ago

No one is putting a gun to these people's heads and making them do these tasks. I believe both sides are to blame. The employer for asking the job to be done for basically nothing and the fool who agrees to it.

throaway42342• 8 years ago

No one is putting a gun to these people's heads and making them do these tasks

Well actually your taxes subsidy major tech companies like Intel and Google, if you do not work and eat you will die, if you work and refuse to pay subsidies through taxes to major tech companies, the IRS will show up at your door, if you do not answer them, you will get a gun pointed at your head.

Ascetik4• 8 years ago

Your argument is a total non-sequitur. No one said they shouldn't work, but they shouldn't work for an unjust wage at completely extortionate wages that are highly unjust. It's essentially labor theft.

stuaxo• 8 years ago

If it is the only job going then it's not much of a choice.

Ascetik4• 8 years ago

There's always a choice.

LarryDarrell• 8 years ago

Desperate people are to blame for being desperate?

dandare2• 8 years ago

So your solution is to take away the job from them? Apparently, the minimum wage laws squeezed them out of the job market and the unregulated online job is their only hope. Or did I miss the part where you volunteered to subsidize their low-value low-skill job? Wait, I know, your solution is to force ME to subsidize their low-value low-skill job, am I right? :D

geezerjay• 8 years ago

No one is putting a gun to these people's heads and making them do these tasks.

...mainly because the ones who refused were fired or let go to make room for those who won't.

spir• 8 years ago

"Euvoluntary exchange" is one of the most important ideas of our time. I think an understanding of euvoluntary exchange motivates one to focus on the root cause of a worker having poor alternatives, and not the perceived injustice of a particular opportunity available to this worker.

"The confusion that arises in judging exchanges that are not euvoluntary is understandable, but unfortunate. The observer, seeing the degree of inequality, or desperation of one of the parties to a potential exchange, is actually perceiving a disparity in levels of welfare of the respective BATNAs, or “Best Alternatives to a Negotiated Exchange.” This disparity is a consequence of differences that come before exchange is contemplated, and are not caused by the exchange." - Mike Munger

http://people.duke.edu/~munger/euvol.pdf

The Internet Is Enabling a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell

Related Stories