Cognitive bias is human nature. The example I read is you'd get many more lawyers working pro bono for charity than you would offering a low wage. This of course extends to our perception of other people doing it.
I for one think we should remove minimum wage entirely but give everyone adequate food and healthcare. If people didn't go bankrupt after a serious injury and had enough food to wait out crappy offers, an appropriate wage would appear naturally.
Re:MTurk + Google News API = press
by Dylan16807 on Thursday October 03, 2013 @05:09AM
(#6487859)
It wouldn't be exploitative if the money was merely a thank you.
But the money wouldn't be merely a thank you. Not for everyone.
If you were making a standard offering on mechanical turk it's likely* that you would find workers that are in poverty, needing it as income, finding themselves working obscene numbers of hours. As example, a system that tries to get someone to work 90 hour weeks can easily be worse than no income at all.
*based on the GP, no personal research done
I have a little personal project and there's a piece of it that could be hired out on mechanical turk.
The project isn't worth much much money to me, it really is just a point of personal interest. And the little task is interesting enough that a few people might actually do it for free.
So I could ask for volunteers. Worse things have happened: how many times do people fill out surveys completely for free?
Surely no one would say I'm exploiting anyone by allowing them to volunteer their time? After all, it's their free choice if they want to waste a few minutes on my silly project.
But apparently I would be exploiting them if I offered a modest sum as a small "thank you".
Why?