You don't need the money, so the money doesn't come into it. It could read:
> I'd much rather -- sit-- at home and pick-- and choose-- what I feel like doing, than -work- a minimum-wage job.
The important piece here is not what the people who have time to waste are doing with job gamification, but the reasons why some people are investing significant amounts of time in a sub minimum wage system and presumably why this group has a large crossover with those using it as a primary income source.
Complete speculation suggests to me that this group contains a non-trivial amount of people who are somehow "locked in" by transport, mental illness, or caring requirements yet need to earn money and are more than willing to work.
I am very concerned that there are people cornered into living like this at sub-societal standards. This is not ok yet I am unsure as to how to find out if this is the case.
The only ones that seemed appealing on the surface were these audio transcriptions. I type over 100wpm and 9 minutes of audio took me over an hour to transcribe. I got like $2, and never even bothered withdrawing it.
If any individual on Mechanical Turk is averaging even 1/3rd federal minimum wage, I'd be shocked.
Since most of the tasks pay even far worse than transcription, and there's a significant unpaid time investment acquiring the tasks and getting them approved, and most people probably try a few tasks before leaving and never even ask for a check, I'd guess the average payout for people working on Mechanical Turk is much less than a dollar per hour.
I've always wondered how it's legal.
If you rush through easier tasks you can complete them in a few minutes doing a good enough job to get paid.
Still, the ability to login and earn even $5/hour at arbitrary times of the day may be desirable for a segment of the population that's perhaps a bit asocial and chooses an RV lifestyle.
Look at the transcriptions / translations for Farsi and languages from the Middle East. People are making plenty of money.
I would see it as a game where the goal is to try and make as much money as possible with as little work. I can also see that unemployed people might enjoy it just as a way of feeling like they're doing something worthwhile.
Certainly, since I don't need the money, I'd much rather earn $3 an hour on Mechanical Turk, sitting at home and picking and choosing what I feel like doing, than $7.25 an hour in a minimum-wage job.