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How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

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Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#101

Post by jpttsn »

cies wrote: post #80
segmondy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming is fun for programmers, we don't get charged to play with computers. :)

> Programming is fun for programmers Bull. If this was true trey would line up to join our company and I could charge them at the door for working with us. Some programming is fun. Sure. Many part of my work are fun. But I'd rather do other things with my life if money was not an issue.

What if it’s fun, but they can program without you? Then they might choose to have fun with the highest bidder.

I would program even if money was no issue. There are many who would.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#102

Post by blaser-waffle »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #93
ptero wrote: post #19

The person described is a "senior business analyst", reportedly making good money, but decides to work on MTurk, doing menial tasks, to help offset extra costs (diapers, etc.) of a baby that was born. This sounds insane to me. Almost anything else sounds better: reduce expenses, figure out if he can get more responsibilities and a raise, even get a low % credit to pay for those diapers for a year, etc. . Is this just…

> figure out if he can get more responsibilities and a raise Not sure about other parents, but when we had our baby, I was less ready for additional responsibilities than at any other point in my life.

Never been more drained then after baby-induced insomnia.

A couple of low-effort, no-brain mturk forms to make extra diaper money? Great! I'll bust out the laptop while killing time at a kid's soccer practice.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#103

Post by blaser-waffle »

mruts wrote: post #53
Ma8ee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but someone who calls himself a BA should be able to get better return for his time.

He probably can but MTurk is superior because of liquidity and flexibility. There are very few jobs in which value is created and paid for in a span of a minute. By turning dead time into money, generating money in a way you could not for other jobs. And a BA isn’t worth much regardless. Half the people I knew in college now work at coffee shops. A general good rule is what when you see someone do something, there’s…

> A general good rule is what when you see someone do something, there’s probably a, if not good, understandable reason for it.

In this case, presumably a middle-class kid who was fed a line that going to college is the way forward. They were probably decent but not outstanding students who went mostly because that was expected and got a A of Arts degree because the BS degrees are miserable.

Motivated folks can make that BA work, but your barista was probably going to end up there with or without a Bachelor's; the BA just means they're promotable, or may be able to break out of that place later.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#104

Post by alexashka »

neilv wrote: post #100

A few years ago, a friend of mine, in her 20s, worked full-time as a technician in a university-affiliated research lab, she managed to find a steal of a studio apartment (half the price of a bottom-end one-bedroom in the neighborhood), and she bought awful cheap bulk food... but money was still so tight that, in the evening, when she was too tired to do anything else, she did these online "gigs" that paid only $1-$2…

Every time I hear these stories, I don't know if they've done the math.

Let's say I live in Toronto (an expensive city to live in) and make 10$/h after taxes working at Starbucks.

40h/week, 4.5 weeks/mo = 1800$

Bedroom in apartment = 700$

Metropass = 150$

Phone = 50$

Internet = 50$

Food = 350$

Total = 1300$

That's 500$ left for things like going out, clothes, etc.

Nobody is exploiting your friends - it sounds like she complained to you, you took her words at face value and concluded that those other people are at fault.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#105

Post by rococode »

neilv wrote: post #100

A few years ago, a friend of mine, in her 20s, worked full-time as a technician in a university-affiliated research lab, she managed to find a steal of a studio apartment (half the price of a bottom-end one-bedroom in the neighborhood), and she bought awful cheap bulk food... but money was still so tight that, in the evening, when she was too tired to do anything else, she did these online "gigs" that paid only $1-$2…

For what it's worth, in my experience tasks from university researchers tend to be more fair. The last few studies I did, we paid an equivalent of $8-10/hour while estimating generously on time (e.g. we did $4/30min, but actual time ranged from 15-20min). People in my lab and another lab I was affiliated with seemed to pay similarly fair wages for both studies and data labeling. We also usually accept everyone's submission, even obviously junk answers. It could be that the people I've worked with are more ethical on this than other researchers, but I don't think that's true.

I don't think the IRB actually enforces a minimum wage, but the feeling of oversight seems to discourage super exploitative behavior. The downside is that high payments means higher requirements - something like 98% acceptance, 500 HITs, Master's qualification, and US location is what I generally see used, and we still get junk answers sometimes (in my last study one person somehow submitted a bunch of HTML forms with empty answers despite required fields, still not sure how they pulled that one off without intentionally doing some sketchy stuff...). This makes the fairly paid tasks inaccessible to most new Turkers, leaving them to pick up the scraps of the $1/hour HITs.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#106

Post by ABCLAW »

alexashka wrote: post #104
neilv wrote: post #100

A few years ago, a friend of mine, in her 20s, worked full-time as a technician in a university-affiliated research lab, she managed to find a steal of a studio apartment (half the price of a bottom-end one-bedroom in the neighborhood), and she bought awful cheap bulk food... but money was still so tight that, in the evening, when she was too tired to do anything else, she did these online "gigs" that paid only $1-$2…

Every time I hear these stories, I don't know if they've done the math. Let's say I live in Toronto (an expensive city to live in) and make 10$/h after taxes working at Starbucks. 40h/week, 4.5 weeks/mo = 1800$ Bedroom in apartment = 700$ Metropass = 150$ Phone = 50$ Internet = 50$ Food = 350$ Total = 1300$ That's 500$ left for things like going out, clothes, etc. Nobody is exploiting your friends - it sounds like sh…

I live in Toronto, those numbers are hilarious. You cannot live in this city on a yearly wage of 21600. Not only are your numbers wrong individually, but they're also woefully under representative because your fake individual isn't buying toiletries, isn't paying for dental, doesn't purchase clothing, doesn't have any medical consumables to purchase, only eats a meal per day or so, etc.

I've done the math. I've lived here. I've financed years of study in the city on loans and been on Ontario Works at times at the start of my career. Your model is poorly constructed.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#107

Post by mkagenius »

alexashka wrote: post #104
neilv wrote: post #100

A few years ago, a friend of mine, in her 20s, worked full-time as a technician in a university-affiliated research lab, she managed to find a steal of a studio apartment (half the price of a bottom-end one-bedroom in the neighborhood), and she bought awful cheap bulk food... but money was still so tight that, in the evening, when she was too tired to do anything else, she did these online "gigs" that paid only $1-$2…

Every time I hear these stories, I don't know if they've done the math. Let's say I live in Toronto (an expensive city to live in) and make 10$/h after taxes working at Starbucks. 40h/week, 4.5 weeks/mo = 1800$ Bedroom in apartment = 700$ Metropass = 150$ Phone = 50$ Internet = 50$ Food = 350$ Total = 1300$ That's 500$ left for things like going out, clothes, etc. Nobody is exploiting your friends - it sounds like sh…

They said $2 per hour not 10. A quick search will pop up a number of gigs paying that much.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#108

Post by ABCLAW »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #46
ptero wrote: post #19

The person described is a "senior business analyst", reportedly making good money, but decides to work on MTurk, doing menial tasks, to help offset extra costs (diapers, etc.) of a baby that was born. This sounds insane to me. Almost anything else sounds better: reduce expenses, figure out if he can get more responsibilities and a raise, even get a low % credit to pay for those diapers for a year, etc. . Is this just…

I guess the article doesn't say it well, but this can be done in small scraps of time from wherever you currently are under circumstances where making money with a "regular job" would not be possible. If you make, say, an extra $5/day on what used to be your smoke breaks and lunch hour at work for an 8-5 job, you have an extra $180 or so a month without any additional overhead (for uniforms, whatever), scheduling con…

"Looked at that way, $2/hour is potentially the equivalent of $8/hour as supplemental income. And you can fit it in to otherwise useless scraps of time."

No. $2/hr is potentially the same as freelancing at $8/hr under your comparison.

That's completely different. Because no one freelances at $8/hr.

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#109

Post by rococode »

ABCLAW wrote: post #106
alexashka wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I hear these stories, I don't know if they've done the math. Let's say I live in Toronto (an expensive city to live in) and make 10$/h after taxes working at Starbucks. 40h/week, 4.5 weeks/mo = 1800$ Bedroom in apartment = 700$ Metropass = 150$ Phone = 50$ Internet = 50$ Food = 350$ Total = 1300$ That's 500$ left for things like going out, clothes, etc. Nobody is exploiting your friends - it sounds like sh…

I live in Toronto, those numbers are hilarious. You cannot live in this city on a yearly wage of 21600. Not only are your numbers wrong individually, but they're also woefully under representative because your fake individual isn't buying toiletries, isn't paying for dental, doesn't purchase clothing, doesn't have any medical consumables to purchase, only eats a meal per day or so, etc. I've done the math. I've lived…

Honestly wondering because I've fortunately not needed to budget this closely before: OP said $350 for food and "500$ left for things like going out, clothes, etc.". Does that not cover what you bring up? ~$11.60 per day for food seems enough for a healthy three meals a day for one person - a quick google shows numbers like $250/month on a "moderate budget" for food. I feel if you're eating one $11 meal every day that's probably a good place to start cutting down on the spending. Is $500 not enough for toiletries, dental, clothes, etc.? Looking at the past month of my own spending, I bought a couple rolls of toilet paper, a tube of toothpaste, body soap, no new clothes, some skincare stuff, and probably $150 worth of insurance. Maybe I forgot a ton of things but I don't think I spent close to $500 on the "extra necessities", as I would call them.

Just to be clear, I don't disagree with you that $21600 is too little to live on. But I mostly buy OP's numbers, which makes me wonder what I'm missing. Debt payments, maybe?

Re: How much money can you make on Mechanical Turk?

#110

Post by wccrawford »

ABCLAW wrote: post #108
DoreenMichele wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the article doesn't say it well, but this can be done in small scraps of time from wherever you currently are under circumstances where making money with a "regular job" would not be possible. If you make, say, an extra $5/day on what used to be your smoke breaks and lunch hour at work for an 8-5 job, you have an extra $180 or so a month without any additional overhead (for uniforms, whatever), scheduling con…

"Looked at that way, $2/hour is potentially the equivalent of $8/hour as supplemental income. And you can fit it in to otherwise useless scraps of time." No. $2/hr is potentially the same as freelancing at $8/hr under your comparison. That's completely different. Because no one freelances at $8/hr.

No, but there are plenty of people who sell hand-made crafts that end up only getting that much in the end.

The difference (IMO) is that the hand-made crafts are a labor of love, and the M Turk stuff is just labor.

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