During the pandemic, remote jobs and freelance became 460% more popular according to a study published by Glassdoor. It seems like it’s the glory hour for gig platforms where doers can earn by implementing small tasks. However, such giants as Amazon MTurk keep on receiving negative reviews with people calling it “a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell”. So, people seek more beneficial options. Let’s figure out whether P2E can be the fit one.
Amazon MTurk as it is
Launched in 2005, Amazon MTurk is a platform where people can find outsource workers to implement Human Intelligence Tasks that computers are currently unable to do. For instance, freelancers may be proposed to write product descriptions, answer questions, and make transcriptions. Clients prepay and publish their requests, freelancers implement them and receive payments. The average fee is 20%. To check whether this platform can still be legit for doers, let’s point out its pros and cons.
Pros
Various Tasks
MTurk gives freelancers the opportunity to challenge tasks related to different spheres, such as art and technology. One can conduct research, do excel spreadsheet work, or make audio and video transcriptions. Consequently, it is a good way of learning new things.
Accessibility
According to a study by Pew Research Center, 25% of gig workers start using such platforms because they have no other options to earn. For instance, they may lack education and skills. Meanwhile, MTurk doesn’t require any specific competencies.
Cons
Low Income
The research made in 2019 shows that people who use MTurk as the primary source of income have lower incomes than other remote workers. According to the 2018 study by Carnegie Mellon University, the average wage of a doer is around $2 per hour. However, in reality, things are even worse. Users claim that they have earned $7.95 in 20, that’s $0.40 per hour.
One may think that such results indicate that most of the platform’s residents live in countries with poor economics. Yet, the research shows that about 80% of doers reside in the USA where the minimum wage is $7.45 per hour. This research showed that only 4% of workers reached the federal minimum wage while the median pay rate was about $1.77 per hour.
As for other economically advanced countries, even the experienced freelancers from the UK failed to earn a living with the platform. For instance, a user worked at MTurk for 12 hours 5 days a week and didn’t manage to earn the minimum wage.
Online Borders
Though MTurk could be still efficient for people from low-wage countries, the platform restricted applications from most of such areas, discriminating the potential quality of doers residing there. Now MTurk is available in 43 countries.
Overtime Work
MTurk doers claim that to find a legit task, they can spend hours searching. And, even if they are ready to implement whatever they see, they may face another problem: requesters tend to say that a task will take 20 minutes when it actually takes an hour. As a result, there are no sustainable working hours for people to plan their day.
Newcomers’ Problems
Users confess that MTurk is tricky to start. To get paid tasks, a doer has to boost their rank. Meanwhile, some orders require extra effort. For instance, to take a task, one may have to pass an English language test first. Consequently, more time will be wasted.
Lack of Enjoyment
Though Amazon MTurks provides doers with tasks of all kinds, users claim that they are extremely boring and repetitive. Even scientific studies, such as the Emerald insight one, show that gig doers tend to have “low levels of self-reported current and predicted future life satisfaction”.
Payment Failures
Unfortunately, not all the doers manage to get paid for their work. 29% of gig workers claimed that they didn’t receive payments. The thing is that clients can reject completed work if it doesn’t meet their standards. So, doers aren’t paid for all the hours they spent on it and have the so-called “fear of account suspensions”.
Safety Issues
Each doer at MTurk gets an identification number, and, though the identities are considered to be anonymous and not connected to actual Amazon accounts, the study made almost ten years ago, in 2013, showed that 50% of profiles can be traced back. The situation hasn’t changed, now some freelancers still complain about safety issues.
Tricky Withdrawals
Only the USA residents face no problems with withdrawals. But if you are from another country, the UK for example, you can’t get your earnings via Paypal or get Amazon vouchers. The only option they have is to buy digital gift cards on Amazon.com and sell them on other websites.
COVID-19
The pandemic also played a part in the decrease of gigs’ efficiency. A lot of people lost their offline jobs, consequently, online platforms got overcrowded by freelancers, the competition went fierce, and profitability decreased. Meanwhile, this research shows that, during the pandemic, gig platforms faced a lack of new projects and demand for workers.
P2E
P2E is a brand new way of earning money by playing online games with NFTs: users upgrade them and get relevant income. However, NFTs have become pricey, and now, to let the people who don’t have enough money for investing in NFTs, special game guilds were created. The holders rent their NFT and get paid. Meanwhile, the players, named scholars, get NFTs from guilds, play, and get stable salaries that are inspiring, especially in comparison with MTurk payments. To clarify other advantages of P2E, let’s compare it with MTurk.
MTurk VS P2E
Income Issues
Unlike MTurk, P2E gaming enables users to earn $4 per hour. So, it is $640 a month. Importantly, while payments are guaranteed, their value in fiat money (US Dollar or Euros, for example) fluctuates with the value of the token they are earning.
Discrimination
As we’ve already learned, MTurks is not available for people from most countries of the world. Meanwhile, P2E platforms are borderless. For instance, Axie Infinity changed the lives of numerous residents of the Philippines for the best.
Amenity of Tasks
For many people, gaming is a fit hobby they are ready to spend time on. So, P2E enables them to earn from their passion instead of things that seem to be boring.
Development Opportunities
Scholars claim that P2E boosts their gaming, social, and financial skills. Additionally, with its help, they learn the ropes of time management, blockchain, and NFT. As for the career opportunities, MTurk doesn’t offer any promotion opportunities while P2E players have career prospects. For instance, they can join guilds and become instructors.
However, if being part of a guild is not your thing, there are still many options to explore for individuals. Players always have a choice to learn and earn on their own through three main avenues:
- Single Application submitted directly to Managers. If you find a game you like, you can join their Discord server and request a scholarship through an application
- Automated Scholarship system. Thanks to the trustless nature of Blockchain, such games as Pegaxy allow you to use an automated scholarship system through a marketplace. You create an account, go to the Renting section, and select a contract that suits you.
- Renting Platforms. Lastly, there are such P2E platforms as Takeus.io which enable independent players to rent NFT tokens directly through their system. The advantage is that you get a lot of different games to choose from and everything is managed from one location instead of having to manage a lot of different game platforms.
True Comfort
Unlike MTurk, P2E platforms provide scholars with the guidance of professional trainers, safety, and friendly colleagues. Importantly scholars don’t have to invest in P2E to start, they just send application forms, have job interviews, and immediately start playing, acquiring all the needed skills in the process.
Conclusion
To sum up, while MTurk seems to be an outdated format rated as 3.3 on Indeed, P2E gaming changes gamers’ lives for the best. This brand new way of earning money already has a lot of fans, willing to devote themselves to its further development. Let’s give it a try and stay tuned to see whether it will be as promising as it is now.
Website: takeus.io
Discord: discord.gg/takeus
Announcements: t.me/takeus_ann
Chat: t.me/takeus_chat
Twitter: twitter.com/TakeUs_io
