4 ms·

Seems like you could make more than .60 a day doing Mechanical Turk jobs. It'd be a little less mind numbing than watching commercials every day.

seansoutpost 13y ago
I agree you can make more. But, one thing to consider is, you have to have a bank account to deposit turk money into or buy things from Amazon. Neither of those has the immediacy of Bitcoin. Also, a lot of homeless have issues getting a bank account. We have millions of "unbanked" people in the US alone.
- a3_nm 13y ago
  Eventually, you would expect that a Bitcoin-based crowdsourcing platform should come into being.
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  You can withdraw the Amazon Payments balance in the form of $5 Amazon gift cards. Then you can sell those to people for $5. A homeless person will have trouble with that, but people with homes and no bank account seem to be more common. Since it's relevant: scam requesters are abundant on Mechanical Turk, and they can kill your earning potential if you don't avoid them. I wrote a thing on how to do that: http://mkronline.com/2013/09/17/how-to-make-money-with-mechanical-turk-without-being-scammed/ http://mkronline.com/2013/09/17/how-to-make-money-with-mecha...
300bps 13y ago
watching commercials every day I don't think the YouTube clips that he watches are commercials. From TFA: thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips Seems more like aspiring YouTube stars paying for traffic to their videos so that they rank higher on YouTube's site. The other app he uses - Bitcoin Tapper - does seem like straight up being paid to click on ads though.
runj__ 13y ago
cmd-F Mechani Oh, there you are. Exactly. You can easily make ~10cents a minute, that's 6 dollars an hour. It's probably pretty hard work but the premise of this is just so... If you're homeless in america, sign up for mechanical turk. You'll make more than enough for food.
- VMG 13y ago
  > If you're homeless in america, sign up for mechanical turk. You'll make more than enough for food. How do you receive money?
- _delirium 13y ago
  This used to be true, but a huge proportion of Mechanical Turk jobs these days are scams, which either don't pay out at all, or end up paying less than $1/hr. Amazon has completely neglected the platform and it's rotted.
- super-serial 13y ago
  How do you make 10 cents a minute? Have you ever tried? When I needed money I tried... I made $2-$3 per hour writing articles. Transcribing audio, doing surveys and small 5 cent tasks all paid less per hour.
  - runj__ 13y ago
    I've only ever created HIT's. Normally paid waaaay over $10 an hour.
gregw134 13y ago
I suggested Mechanical Turk to a homeless guy I had gotten to know briefly, and he seemed legitimately interested in the idea, although he said he didn't have a bank account. I'll bet lots of homeless people would use Mechanical Turk if they simply knew about it and had a way of getting paid.

seansoutpost 13y ago

I agree you can make more. But, one thing to consider is, you have to have a bank account to deposit turk money into or buy things from Amazon. Neither of those has the immediacy of Bitcoin. Also, a lot of homeless have issues getting a bank account. We have millions of "unbanked" people in the US alone.

a3_nm 13y ago
Eventually, you would expect that a Bitcoin-based crowdsourcing platform should come into being.
mkr-hn 13y ago
You can withdraw the Amazon Payments balance in the form of $5 Amazon gift cards. Then you can sell those to people for $5. A homeless person will have trouble with that, but people with homes and no bank account seem to be more common. Since it's relevant: scam requesters are abundant on Mechanical Turk, and they can kill your earning potential if you don't avoid them. I wrote a thing on how to do that: http://mkronline.com/2013/09/17/how-to-make-money-with-mechanical-turk-without-being-scammed/ http://mkronline.com/2013/09/17/how-to-make-money-with-mecha...

300bps 13y ago

watching commercials every day I don't think the YouTube clips that he watches are commercials. From TFA: thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips Seems more like aspiring YouTube stars paying for traffic to their videos so that they rank higher on YouTube's site. The other app he uses - Bitcoin Tapper - does seem like straight up being paid to click on ads though.

runj__ 13y ago

cmd-F Mechani Oh, there you are. Exactly. You can easily make ~10cents a minute, that's 6 dollars an hour. It's probably pretty hard work but the premise of this is just so... If you're homeless in america, sign up for mechanical turk. You'll make more than enough for food.

VMG 13y ago
> If you're homeless in america, sign up for mechanical turk. You'll make more than enough for food. How do you receive money?
_delirium 13y ago
This used to be true, but a huge proportion of Mechanical Turk jobs these days are scams, which either don't pay out at all, or end up paying less than $1/hr. Amazon has completely neglected the platform and it's rotted.
super-serial 13y ago
How do you make 10 cents a minute? Have you ever tried? When I needed money I tried... I made $2-$3 per hour writing articles. Transcribing audio, doing surveys and small 5 cent tasks all paid less per hour.
- runj__ 13y ago
  I've only ever created HIT's. Normally paid waaaay over $10 an hour.

gregw134 13y ago

I suggested Mechanical Turk to a homeless guy I had gotten to know briefly, and he seemed legitimately interested in the idea, although he said he didn't have a bank account. I'll bet lots of homeless people would use Mechanical Turk if they simply knew about it and had a way of getting paid.