I tried Mechanical Turk years and years ago. At that time there were really no tasks available that paid an amount that could consistently get you anywhere close to minimum wage.<p>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.<p>If any individual on Mechanical Turk is averaging even 1&#x2F;3rd federal minimum wage, I&#x27;d be shocked.<p>Since most of the tasks pay even far worse than transcription, and there&#x27;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&#x27;d guess the average payout for people working on Mechanical Turk is much less than a dollar per hour.<p>I&#x27;ve always wondered how it&#x27;s legal.