ChaCha Makes Its Crazy Business Model…Profitable
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This is ridiculous, how long until crowdsourced pay becomes regulated?
Taking advantage of people b/c they allow it under their own volition doesn't make it right. This is why we have minimum wage.
People who let themselves be taken advantage of like this aren't using the same judgement and resources to make their decisions as those who know better.
Now, you have people working in the comfort of their climate-controlled home. A homemaker used to get bored to tears taking care of kids, feeling utterly dependent on a spouse for income. Now both parties can feel productive, and each gets the work best suited.
Now, you're right about child labor and minimum wage being connected. Minimum wage was first enacted in Australia and New Zealand for the sole reason of preventing businesses and the market from unfairly exploiting workers -- expressly women and children -- by paying them non-living wages.
As far as I can tell we have the same exact thing happening here. Just because a woman is working from "the comfort of [her] climate-controlled home" doesn't make $2.50/hour fair.
(Also, I should state that I'm only concerned here w/ US employees being paid $2.50/hour. I think offshoring/outsourcing is another topic entirely.)
Not every casual, part-time, voluntary, done-at-your-own-pace-on-your-own-terms activity should have to pay a "living" wage. That sort of standard doesn't "protect" people -- it destroys potential.
"Exploitation" is not a matter of first-world absolute watermarks (like a statutory minimum wage) of the value of people's time. It's a matter of what their other options are. If they have to work for $2.50/hour or starve, that could be a problem. If they choose to work for $2.50/hour rather than watch TV, then something other than exploitation is happening. (And besides the immediate but less-than-minimum-wage benefits, the person could also be building knowledge and skills towards an eventual higher-paid job.)
And if you only prohibit American workers from taking such casual voluntary work, why is it better for the $2.50 to go overseas?
If businesses should be able to pay certain people living wages and others whatever they work for, should McD's pay high school kids $2.50 and single moms more? Also, the work I do is at my own pace, does that mean my company should pay me less since I'm not being forced to produce?
The simple fact that it's work done from home doesn't mean the rules that regular businesses must follow need not apply.
Also, $2.50/hr overseas isn't $2.50/hr, it's whatever the conversion rate is. That's why that conversation is much more complicated. And I'm not a protectionist, so I have no problem with the notion of offshoring.
Really, many of the people doing online piecework, like Cha-Cha answers or MTurk tasks, aren't even looking for a real clock-in job. They're just engaged in a diversion, and happy to be making a little on the side. If they weren't doing the piecework, they would be Facebooking, IM'ing, TV-watching, gaming -- something else they can do in dribs and drabs at home. In fact, they may be doing all those things simultaneously!
If your preferred crackdown was enacted -- abolishing their current arrangement -- many wouldn't even look for one of your "fair" regulated minimum-wage jobs, clocking in at some office or fast-food-joint.
I respect them to make their own decisions. You "color these people" as if they were helpless victims "who let themselves be taken advantage of" and "aren't using the same judgement and resources to make their decisions as those who know better". That's more denigratory to voluntary at-home pieceworkers than anything I've said.
2. Contractors can either work per hour or per job. And if both people agree on a job and a price, and each job is slightly different, and you don't know a priori how long it's going to take, how do you reprice the jobs?
In a perfect world Chacha should have to readjust their per search payment until their average hourly wage was minimum wage. Several hundreds or thousands of people doing contract work online from home shouldn't escape the kinds of regulations other businesses have to meet.
This sort of crowdsourcing is likely to become a big industry.
Do you think that a) workers will be better-off if they're not allowed to take the jobs they want if those jobs don't pay as well as you'd like? b) Chacha would be better off if they didn't hire super-unskilled laborers?
As a side note, the evidence against minimum wage as an effective policy is staggering. The only reason it persists today is because it is politically convenient.
You realize that 197 countries use a minimum wage, right, not just us?
Of course there's evidence against it -- just like there's evidence for it -- and the fact that it's a hot-button topic should have made me realize before the fact that people would go through and downvote all my comments. I really couldn't care less if HN supports the idea of paying US citizens $2.50/hr. I'm certainly done arguing about it.
This is clearly something you feel very strongly about (which is interesting to me personally, because I see no substance to the argument in favor of minimum wage), but discussion is more productive if you are open-minded.