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Comment by goatherders | Hacker News Reader

There are some truly awful suggestions here. The question isnt about changing his life by learning to code or setting up a plastics machine (which is pretty cool but takes investment) or starting an affiliate site and then generating traffic, it's about generating income during a global pandemic.

1. Fiverr 2. Mechanical Turk 3. Craigslist Gigs 4. UpWork

Can generate $50 by dinner time if you're willing to focus and put in the time.

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From experience on Upwork, that platform is a big dumpster fire that should be avoided at all costs. Any task will immediately get spammed with lowball offers by monkeys which means it's impossible to actually earn realistic prices. The clients are non-technical for the most part so they will not see the red flags and will go with the lowball offers anyway, with predictable results. The rating system has been gamed to death so everyone is 5 stars regardless of their actual skills. Submitting proposals properly takes a lot of time and isn't worth it when you know the client is more likely to go with the lowest bidder. You're better off getting a low-wage job in a supermarket or sandwich shop.

Just as a contrasting datapoint, I use Upwork a lot as a client, and I've found a lot of good contractors on there. I agree with you that the platform itself is terrible and seems to succeed in spite of itself, but it's worked well enough for my needs.

I've hired cartoonists[0], editors[1], writers[2], accountants, and developers. I had the worst luck with developers because, as you say, the ratings are meaningless. They have the lemon problem[3] that good developers won't really work for $15/hr, but there are also bad developers who charge $125/hr. But to evaluate whether a developer is good or bad, you generally have to invest 10-15 hours with them. So a string of expensive bad matches can cost you $5-10k in trial hires just to find a decent developer. I think other tasks are easier to hire for because costs are lower and the outputs are more easily inspectable.

[0] https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/

[1] https://mtlynch.io/editor/

[2] https://mtlynch.io/hiring-content-writers/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

It's probably good for hiring, but awful for freelancing.

They still have $1k of my money (well money I earned through a client) because they banned my account without explanation!

I haven't used them in years, maybe they have gotten better.

That brings up a question: What can you do to earn $50 in 24 hours?

Unless you already have mturk the waiting period is days to weeks if you're not rejected. Fiverr/Upwork would all require a large amount of luck to make $50 in one day as communication with client and turn-around time could take 12-24 hours before even starting a small one hour project. CL might be the best way to make that money in that time period doing a miscellaneous yard service or delivery or whatever. I'm curious though if there are other avenues to make $50 in one day.

If you own a pickup truck, put a junk hauling ad on Craigslist. Charge $50 + dump fees. You will have to err on the side of caution here, as dump fees are determined by weight.

People Ready (aka Labor Ready). Be there early before they open, and if you're lucky (because I'm sure they're swamped these days) you'll get a full day's work. You get paid that evening.

A trick I learned back in 2009 was that if you bring a drill, or even a screwdriver, you can get assigned to much nicer jobs (never worked for Labor Ready, but worked for very similar companies during the 2008 recession).

I've always been pretty nomadic, and one trick I was taught long ago when you need cash in a hurry is to go stand outside a self-storage facility and look for people that need help moving. I was able to make $50-$150 a day when times were tight.

I bring this up because people actually do call day labor companies for this all the time.

Is it really possible to generate $50/day on mturk? What kind of tasks would pay that much?

12 hours of aggressive work might get you there.

A friend of mine claims his HITs (identifying/verifying if a tv show switches to a commercial in a 30 second video) pay about $12/hr for anyone who doesn't get banned for low quality answers.

I've seen that there are a number of tools (usually like browser extensions) which allow you to filter and sort HIT offers for the best use of your time.

I have had to make $100 in a couple hours with almost no avenue to do so. Here are the 2 different things I did multiple times each that show it IS possible to make money using just your creativity.

1. Went to Goodwill store (second hand store for those that dont know it.) Took pictures of the office furniture available. Posted to CL in my city at a price $10 to $20 more than it cost to buy. Subject line: "Price reduced by 30%". Stood in the store adding more items and watched my inbox for replies. This paid approx $20 an hour. I did this at least half a dozen times when my first child was born and we were on the verge of starving.

2. Called everyone I knew with a business and offered to build a website or facebook page or Twitter profile or Yelp page for $x, half paid up front. We HN folks overestimate how technical people are. 100 bucks to "be on social media" is cheap.

> when my first child was born and we were on the verge of starving

Damn, that sounds horrible.

> Subject line: "Price reduced by 30%".

It sounds like a part of sales is about lying to people then? Or obscuring relationships/sources?

Obscuring sourced and information has always been part of sales. Amazon obscures its sources. So does walmart. So does McDonalds. Literally everything on earth would be less expensive if the customer could buy directly from the manufacturer or source. But distributors exist to create efficiency and scale which benefits both buyer and seller.

Language learning tutoring. You can be a "community tutor" no diploma required on platforms like iTalki, Verbling, etc.

I think it's disingenuous to suggest that you can setup an account on these sites and have $50 by the end of the day "if you are willing to focus". With the exception of Mechanical Turk, which pays pennies, the others require you have a skill that people are willing to pay for.

OP didn't really help by not sharing any details about his friend. It's friendly to assume that some skills might be monetized on these platforms.

I think the competition is nuts too, when I've been on the other side(hiring) it's overwhelming how many people you get to respond/hard to tell if the person is competent/trustworthy(with regard to allowing access to your tech to work on it). Starting from 0 is really hard(people with former work look more trustworthy).

Excellent point. This is the modern version of the oft ridiculed Boomer idea to "just go door to door until you get a job like I did back in 1967".

I've got a feeling that it'd probably be even easier nowadays. I remember when I came to London about 10 years ago: no money,no connections, nothing.Went online to check some jobs just to see some ads with 200+ applications.. Printed my crappy CV,a list of a few agencies and started going from one to another. Managed to get a job 4 hours later..

> when I came to London about 10 years ago

Surely not London, Ontario. Wouldn't work in any city on any time.

You're surely right. In a world with 20% unemployment you'd probably get a job in 27 seconds, and if you don't you are just lazy right!!?? Was your reply sarcasm?

There was no sarcasm. All I meant was that sometimes knocking on a few doors could yield better results than just sending CVs around. I did quickly find a job 10 years ago but it doesn't mean that in current situation it'd be the same.

I guess it depends what you're looking for. Before I was in this industry the "quickest" job to get into was washing plates at some restaurant... have to go through all the hiring bs but that's a high turnover/low skill job.

edit: hiring bs as in these philosophical quizes of how many people would you kill, one or several, etc... like man I'm just here to wash plates.

While a good idea in general, I don't know how many doors would open up right now after knocking. Coronacrisis and social distancing make this approach harder than ever, most offices are working remotely, and most service industry places are closed.

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