• partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I’m familiar with the history of it. It was a person in the box. Mechanical Turk is also a 21st century reference to people that do brainless work born from the AWS service. In either reading I’m only seeing you’re saying they don’t count as workers, or they’re workers that don’t count because their work is trivial.

    I see from your post history that English may not be your first language. I’m really hoping you’re just miscommunication. Please explain the non-racist/non-dismissing meaning I’m hoping you’re trying to get across.

    • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      What I meant by that was that many tech companies hire people, who frequently perform these tasks on a project basis for only short periods of time, and pay them a pittance for their work. Their numbers are likely to fluctuate greatly.

      I was by no means trying to emphasise the fact that these people mostly live in countries where wages are particularly low and where there are virtually no labor protections; I was simply pointing out that they are usually hired on a short-term basis.

      This exploitative practice, as well as other “gig-work” arrangements, is unfortunately quite widespread, especially in the tech industry, and serves to increase corporate profitability. Many tech companies use this approach to reduce the number of permanent employees—a practice that, of course, isn’t unique to the tech industry—but using these practices there are many tech companies that generate astronomical revenues with a comparatively small workforce.