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The perils of microtask work
- emodendroket 8y agoHonestly, nothing here is surprising. It's amazing that this stuff operates without scrutiny.
- jstanley 8y agoI don't see the problem. People wouldn't do the tasks if they didn't think it was beneficial to them.
- nkrisc 8y agoPeople will sacrifice well-being in one area (ex.: mental health) for well-being in an other area (ex.: money for housing/food). That doesn't mean it isn't a problem. You seem to be assuming a perfectly rational world...
- jstanley 8y agoYou seem to be assuming that you know what's best for other people. Why not leave it up to them? If you were to shut down MTurk I don't think the people who rely on it for money would thank you.
- crc32 8y agoYour question amounts to "Why do we have employment law"?
- beaconstudios 8y agomore like "should we be creating employment law for microtask work?" which is more of an open question, especially if you consider what such legislation might look like and what effects it may have on the workers and clients alike.
- xg15 8y agoWhat is so fundamentally different about microtask work that it would warrant no employment regulations?
- beaconstudios 8y agowell, a ton of things - it's much closer to freelance work than employment. Not that I'm even advocating for keeping it deregulated specifically - I was making the point that when considering regulation, the (often accidental) effects of said regulation need to be considered. You don't want to fall afoul of the Cobra effect and end up destroying a good thing. Regulation should be introduced to fix specific issues, not just because there aren't any yet. Especially if it's filling an important financial gap for people with low incomes.
- jstanley 8y agoIndeed!
- nkrisc 8y agoIf workers are choosing to subject themselves to the sort of work described for less than minimum wage then that suggests to me there is a very real problem indeed. You stated you don't see a problem, when to me this looks like the symptom of a much larger problem. Why do they feel this is the better choice? What were their other options and why?
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYou seem to be making exactly the same assumption, merely a different assumption.
- jstanley 8y agoI'm not assuming that I know what's best for other people, I'm assuming that they know what's best, or are at least in the best position to know what's best. If working for MTurk isn't their best option, they'll pick one of their better options. It follows that, for people who do work on MTurk, MTurk is their best option.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYet as most of our regulations on every major area show, people in need often don't have better options. Very often they know that only too well, but do it because it's their only option. It follows where an option at the margins causes problems it may need to be regulated to prevent abuse of those in dire straits or need. As already seems clearly necessary for things like Deliveroo etc. Abuse of that nature is how we got a lot of our more civilised food, consumer and employment regulations. It's how we came to the hard-fought idea of a safety net that this generation is trying to shred.
- Spooky23 8y agoPeople depending on something like mechanical turk for income lack the agency to make that decision. Why don’t we allow 15 year olds to enter contracts? Piecework is usually awful to workers. When you consider that minimum wage is about $0.25, chiseling workers out of such a small amount of money seems pretty awful.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoSo let's tax the fuck out of these trillion dollar companies in order to make up for that.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoIn general isn't it better to be given a choice instead of having a decision forced upon you? Because even if we consider from our view that one choice is worse, other people may value things differently and may be in different situations that apply different weights to the options. If we really think that someone is too incompetent to make a choice and remove the choice from them, then don't we have some duty to help them out? For example, I want a child to go to school, not a job, and think them too incompetent to make the decision of which is better for them. In removing the option to work, I then have a duty to support them if they were needing the job to live (which is done by specific welfare for children or their parents).
- nkrisc 8y agoSure, choice is good. But if this work is as bad as the article describes, yet people still choose to do it, then consider how bad the other option must be. Hardly a real "choice."
- jstanley 8y agoBut forcing them onto the worse choice (by stopping them from doing MTurk) is surely worse!
- ilikehurdles 8y agoExposing the ills of minimally-regulated contract labor isn't forcing anyone to do anything. If amazon benefits from MTurk, it's not going to shut it down if it can help it. If laborers have no other option between earning a fraction of minimum wage for an hours work and going hungry, they'll probably keep working. But calling that a "choice" is like saying the mafioso holding a gun to your head is giving you the freedom to decide to follow his orders.
- jstanley 8y agoExcept in this case nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head. Amazon aren't saying "work on MTurk or we'll do some harm to you", they're saying "work on MTurk if you think the money is worth it".
- hinkley 8y agoCon men make the mark think the transaction is beneficial to them. Does that mean we shouldn’t outlaw fraud?
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoYou say that but there's a lot of people that are desperate for money or short term instant gratification.
- jstanley 8y agoAnd how exactly does it benefit people who are desperate for money if you take away their sources of money?
- Falling3 8y agoWhy are you trying to shut down reasonable criticism with a straw man? I haven't seen anyone advocate for any specific actions.
- jstanley 8y agoSorry, I hadn't noticed any reasonable criticism. The fact that the only reason people work for MTurk is because they're desperate for money is hardly a criticism of MTurk. If anything, it's a criticism of everyone else in the world for not providing better ways to make money. For example, the only reason homeless people queue up to get food from soup kitchens is because they're desperate for food, but that doesn't mean soup kitchens are bad because the queues can be long. (Hypothetical; I don't actually know if queues are typically long). You're right that nobody had advocated any specific action and I merely assumed that everybody who was against microtask work was in favour of shutting it down. My mistake.
- Falling3 8y ago> Sorry, I hadn't noticed any reasonable criticism Did you read the article? > For example, the only reason homeless people queue up to get food from soup kitchens is because they're desperate for food, but that doesn't mean soup kitchens are bad because the queues can be long. (Hypothetical; I don't actually know if queues are typically long). Are you really drawing a comparison between skirting minimum wage laws and providing free food for homeless people?
- nerdponx 8y agoTwo economists were walking down the street. One of them saw a $20 bill lying on the ground and reached down to pick it up. The other economist, startled, said, "what are you doing?" The first economist said, "I'm picking up that $20 bill." The other economist was bemused. "There can't possibly be a $20 there to pick up. Why, someone would have already picked it up!" The first economist straightened up, and considered carefully the words of his colleague. Convinced that it must be his imagination, he nodded, and the pair of them walked off.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThe problem I see is that these people aren't building up anything. With regular jobs you build up some level of reputation over time which then helps you get better jobs. With mechanical turk work or driving Uber you never get beyond step 1 in a career.
- gojomo 8y agoThe survey answers in this report, from people who say they enjoy this work, refute this notion. Many of the workers say they are learning interesting things. (Also, a surprising number have significant educational backgrounds, implying they have other work choices.) Also, the systems themselves certify high-performing workers over time, who then become eligible for higher-paying microtasks.
- mortenjorck 8y ago“Children wouldn’t work in factories if their parents didn’t think it was beneficial to them. Why should we take away that source of income for families that desperately need it?”
- antidesitter 8y agoAre you saying these adults are children? If not, what's the point of this comparison?
- Falling3 8y ago> if their parents didn’t think it was beneficial Did you miss that bit? The point of the comparison is to highlight the obviously fallacious reasoning that underlies the idea that someone's participation in something means it's beneficial to them.
- antidesitter 8y ago> if their parents didn’t think it was beneficial Who are the "parents" in this case?
- sanderjd 8y agoI'm not the commenter you're replying to, but here's my interpretation: Elsewhere in this thread, the entire concept of employment regulation is called into question. The history of employment law goes back to child labor regulations. So if you reject all employment regulation, you also reject child labor regulation. This is a very fringe argument that is a nonstarter with basically everyone. If, on the other hand, you don't reject child labor regulations, then you accept the premise that employment regulation is sometimes necessary, and now we're just haggling over the details.
- CNJ7654 8y agoThose parents aren't acting in the children's best interests, and the children themselves aren't capable of understanding or consenting to the decisions being made. An adult can understand and consent to whatever work they want. They're free to dig their own grave if that is what they want to do
- vinceguidry 8y agoI'm reminded of the YouTube video that took a considered look at the mail-order bride industry. The conclusion was that it's expensive, you have to worry about companies scamming you out of your money, or less maliciously and more commonly, simply not doing their best to solve your problem and letting you rack up tens of thousands in fees, but for the most part, it's an avenue for real people with real problems to find a solution for them, and the outcomes are largely beneficial. What we need to do as a society is to protect the unsophisticated from scams that they are entirely unprepared to spot and avoid. Like bringing workers over from other countries, taking their passports, and basically turning them into slaves. Compared to that, this is far less wretched hive of scum and villainy. But even wretched hives are better than no hive at all.
- sctb 8y agoThe United Nations' International Labor Organization performs a study across thousands of people in many countries. This is on one side of the scale, and on the other side of the scale we have “I don't see the problem.” Can we please do a little better than this? Actually learning something is more important than satisfying oneself with glib dismissals, which inevitably draw others into a sad cloud of dullness.
- emodendroket 8y agoYou could equally well have written this response about, say, child labor, or factories where they locked all the exits and once in a while people died preventable deaths. People were there for some kind of benefit. Did that make it OK?
- sjbase 8y ago> The survey counted unpaid work as "time spent looking for tasks, earning qualifications, researching requesters through online forums, communicating with requesters or clients and leaving reviews, as well as unpaid/rejected tasks/tasks ultimately not submitted." These hidden costs are almost identical in the world of independent freelance work. Similar for "gig" workers as well. An Uber/Lyft driver told me he aims for 10 hours per day, which usually takes an extra 4 hours (14 total) of unpaid relocating, waiting around, etc. My hope is that people view this as the cost of autonomy, but I fear most people aren't pricing it in.
- tomjen3 8y agoPresumably they would find out about those costs relatively fast. But I mean those costs have always been part of the reason freelancers are more expensive than employees (the other being the increased flexibility). What seems to happen now is that, increasingly, free lancers are cheaper, which suggests that employees are paid above the price they could expect, if there weren't rules about minimum wage.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoFreelancers had the ability to set their price. With most of these gig apps, you have exactly zero say in how much is being charged.
- emodendroket 8y agoWell that's one conclusion we could draw. Another is that these services are illustrating the necessity for robust regulation of employers who would pay less than minimum wage.
- tenpoundhammer 8y agoI think this particular example is a great example of what's difficult about the world right now. Technology has opened many new opportunities for corporations and for everyday people. However, the pace of new opportunities is way faster than the ability that governments have to regulate the new opportunities. It would seem that companies, entrepreneurs, and silicon valley have realized this and are using it as a business strategy. If I had to sum up the business strategy, I would say "Find a regularity system that can be exploited by rapid innovation". While it's always been a business strategy to exploit legal loopholes, I think the difference is that companies exploit an entire regulatory system which is harder to update and takes longer. Airbnb, Uber, Mechanical Turk, are all examples of exploiting a regulatory system by creating a product and then quickly scaling it up to mass adoption before the practices introduced can be outlawed. Once something has been massively adopted it's difficult to stop completely. While the word exploit seems inherently negative I'm not trying to make judgment value, I think it's the correct description. I don't have a strong opinion about any of these companies or exploiting regulatory systems. However, I do think that democracy needs to find a way to keep up with the forces taking advantage of its inherent systematic boundaries, such as being slow to react. I'm not sure what needs to change but I think when you have many US citizens participating in completely unregulated labor markets there is a problem that needs to be solved.
- 394549 8y ago> I think the difference is that companies exploit an entire regulatory system which is harder to update and takes longer. Airbnb, Uber, Mechanical Turk, are all examples of exploiting a regulatory system by creating a product and then quickly scaling it up to mass adoption before the practices introduced can be outlawed. > Once something has been massively adopted it's difficult to stop completely. > ... > However, I do think that democracy needs to find a way to keep up with the forces taking advantage of its inherent systematic boundaries, such as being slow to react. I'm not sure what needs to change but I think when you have many US citizens participating in completely unregulated labor markets there is a problem that needs to be solved. I think the solution is that it be made very clear to the companies pushing the regulatory boundaries (and their fans) that they should be prepared to have their business models destroyed when the regulatory environment catches up. Call it "Creative Destruction 2.0."
- satyrnein 8y agoI think the concept of "informed consent" is applicable here. Are the workers informed? Much like the question of whether Uber drivers properly factor in the cost of maintenance, it's possible that workers do not have the right expectations of what they will earn, so articles like this are helpful in adding context and information. Let it get around that these tasks make you less than minimum wage. Do the workers consent? Obviously they consent in at least some sense, so comparisons to slavery (as in the comments to the original article) are overblown. These workers are free to seek other options. However, it's also possible that they are correctly concluding this is their best option, due to lack of opportunity in their area, health reasons that make them immobile, etc. In that case, then two cheers for MTurk for improving their lives, to at least some extent.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoI take issue with your conclusion that "if the workers are correctly concluding this their best option, then cheers to Mechanical Turk for improving their lives to some extent". A less generous interpretation is that Amazon has identified a cohort of people with limited employment options and found a way to effectively pay them less than minimum wage. Is any job better than none to an unemployed person? Maybe — but we need money to live, and labor laws exist precisely to prevent employers from exploiting that.
- twerpy_d 8y agoThe same wage that's a slap in the face to an American can be quite lucrative to someone in a lesser developed nation. Hits for pennies are a god send to those folks.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoMaybe so, but the article, parent comment and my comment are all referring to people for whom microtasks are not a lucrative source of income.
- satyrnein 8y agoI'd guess it was less intentional than that. Amazon created the market, but I don't think they'd regard it as a failure if the equilibrium price were above minimum wage.