Unsurprising
I'm a little ambivalent about the conclusions of this Salon article:
"I make $1.45 a week and I love it"
True, juggernauts like Amazon are paying people real cheap to do their dirty work for them. They've been doing it for years. I myself was obsessed for a long time selling used books on Amazon. It was a good way to make an extra buck. I was aware the whole time that Amazon was a getting a good cut of the fruits of my labor simply by allowing me to post my items on their site, there was no work on their part.
Was I being exploited by Amazon? Sure I was. But I was knowingly allowing them to do so, because there were tangible benefits for me. I wasn't some third world peasant with few economic options other than working in a sweatshop or starving. I'm currently part of Amazon's affiliate program, which isn't really work on my part at all, except in the most passive sense.
Likewise, the people doing the work at "Amazon Mechanical Turk" are doing the same thing. They are completely and willingly doing labor for Amazon. They have enough time and resources to sit at their computer and find programs such as these and complete the tedious work. I believe very few (if any) of these people are relying on this program for their next meal. Most are likely just doing this to make an extra buck to just buy more stuff. Rampant consumerism is the crux of the problem; Amazon is just a symptom of the problem. The corporations encourage this, so in no way am I apologizing for these organizations. However, a lot of the blame needs to be placed squarely on the people who participate in this... people who are doing this just to buy more stuff.
The Salon Article
"I make $1.45 a week and I love it"
True, juggernauts like Amazon are paying people real cheap to do their dirty work for them. They've been doing it for years. I myself was obsessed for a long time selling used books on Amazon. It was a good way to make an extra buck. I was aware the whole time that Amazon was a getting a good cut of the fruits of my labor simply by allowing me to post my items on their site, there was no work on their part.
Was I being exploited by Amazon? Sure I was. But I was knowingly allowing them to do so, because there were tangible benefits for me. I wasn't some third world peasant with few economic options other than working in a sweatshop or starving. I'm currently part of Amazon's affiliate program, which isn't really work on my part at all, except in the most passive sense.
Likewise, the people doing the work at "Amazon Mechanical Turk" are doing the same thing. They are completely and willingly doing labor for Amazon. They have enough time and resources to sit at their computer and find programs such as these and complete the tedious work. I believe very few (if any) of these people are relying on this program for their next meal. Most are likely just doing this to make an extra buck to just buy more stuff. Rampant consumerism is the crux of the problem; Amazon is just a symptom of the problem. The corporations encourage this, so in no way am I apologizing for these organizations. However, a lot of the blame needs to be placed squarely on the people who participate in this... people who are doing this just to buy more stuff.
The Salon Article
posted by feral at 9:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home