Experience with Amazons Mechanical Turk
When I first heard about Amazon's mechanical turk, I was really excited about the possibility of earning additional money, from a legit company. As I dabble here and there, I am of the opinion that every little bit I can earn, adds up to something when combined together. I signed up immediately and began turking. At first, I thought maybe I did not exactly understand what I had signed up for. I mean, really, some of the hits were paying zero cents to three cents...despite my optimistic attitude, I did not see how I would ever earn the minimum payout of ten dollars.
Despite my concerns I began turking. I thought to myself, that if I spent twenty minutes a day doing these small tasks, I would at least earn a little extra money, and it would be time I had otherwise devoted to watching television or doing something as unproductive. I started off with great intentions, I was amazed by the amount of work some of the requests wanted you to do for one penny. I mean, seriously, you want me to rewrite ten sentences, for a penny? That takes like five minutes maybe to complete and I will be rewarded with one cent? Times might be tough, but not that tough!
There are a few tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk that will pay you adequately, but you really have to jump on the high paying hits, because everyone is interested in these hits. I consider myself lucky to find a hit, that I can complete that will pay me a quarter. That is pathetic, in my opinion. As I have built up a few dollars in my account, I am somewhat of a slave to this program. I worked so hard to earn the few dollars I did earn, that darn it I want to get paid, so I have to keep on completing these time consuming, extremely low paying hits to reach that minimum payment amount.
I devoted one entire Sunday to turking at Amazon Mechanical Turk. Six grueling hours later, my daily reward was a whopping $1.87. In six hours I could not even earn two dollars. Talk about an absolute disappointment!
Some people have great success with Amazon's Mechanical Turk, unfortunately I am not one of them. I can't earn enough in an hour to make the effort worthwhile to me. I am still turking away, but only when I have extra time on my hands, and I only accept data entry hits at this point in time. I have heard many rumors claiming rewards are getting bigger, and that there will be no minimum payment amount, but I have no evidence to turn these from rumors to facts.
If you are thinking about utilizing Amazon's Mechanical Turk program, I would advise you to consider the amount of time you will put forth when considering the payment for the task.
