If you think it is fun, having a hobby (mturk) that is a small net positive can save you a lot of money compared to having a hobby which is a net loss (most hobbies).
If this was generally perceived as fun, then Amazon would charge money for you to "play" mturk. The fact mturk work pays tells me that mturk is pretty much nobody's hobby.
The "fun" may be to earn a little extra money doing menial tasks. Just the other day there was a discussion here about EVE online and how much menial management is needed in the game to set up for a small amount of fun PvP combat time. What's the difference between that and doing some mindless menial tasks for a couple extra bucks to go out on the weekend?
> The "fun" may be to earn a little extra money doing menial tasks.
That the pay is fun (or enables fun) does not make the work fun. Here mturk was named a potential "hobby", that's just ridiculous to me.
> Just the other day there was a discussion here about EVE online and how much menial management is needed in the game to set up for a small amount of fun PvP combat time. What's the difference between that and doing some mindless menial tasks for a couple extra bucks to go out on the weekend?
You could argue that EVE setup is "work" required to enable some "fun" play. I don't think anyone would consider EVE setup (just the setup) as a hobby.
Some people's "hobby" is couponing. I doubt they consider the act of digging through papers to find and cut out coupons to be fun, but the act as a whole is. But I guess if you define a hobby strictly as something you do not for pay, you're correct. If you define it more broadly as something you do during non-work time, then it fits.
I don't think you can separate the setup from the work so easily. I highly doubt if you just had the "fun" play then it'd be a successful game. There are plenty of action packed alternatives if you just want the battle part all the time.
People like grinding. Just not when they have to accept that they're grinding for the sake of grinding. There needs to be an upcoming battle or achievement or texture pack unlock or a few extra bucks in the bank in order for them to get their "I'm being productive" kick every time they complete one of their many short, simple, well defined grind tasks. Just a continuous stream of little wins.
I think I know what you're getting at. Where I work, you could almost set your watch on the almost-once-per-minute frequency of someone yelling "fuck" or "shit" because they're annoyed at something in code (I'm no exception to this), but I think it's safe to say that the 45 minutes of frustration are worth it for the 15 minutes of "I'm the coolest person ever!".
I agree. I think I have a pretty decent job, but if they stopped paying me I wouldn't show up "just for fun".
Programming on stuff I care about is fun, and for some beautiful moments at work there is overlap of "stuff I care about" and "stuff that is valuable to the business", but most of the time the work is "meh" and I mostly view it as "this is much better to me than most other jobs would be for me".
Why would they line up to work for you of all people? They can work for anyone they want, it’s somewhat of a seller’s market when it comes to programming.
I imagine just about nothing is 100% fun 100% of the time. If many parts of your work are fun, it’s fair to say your work is fun. If you’d rather be doing something else, you could try that, too. Maybe you’d like it more.
Maybe not all programmers, and maybe not all tasks...
But when I compare programming to RPGs, I feel the same way. In both of them, I spend a lot of effort supporting the really fun parts with work. I enjoy both, and I keep doing both. But RPGs have a ton of grind that I generally don't like except that it enables me to get to the fun stuff.
Most of my hobbies are like this. There are things I have to do in prep for the fun stuff, or after the fun stuff to finish the project. And I do them to get back to the fun again.
Me too, but not 30+ hours per week. And on something of my choosing. And...
Then programming usually does not come by itself: meetings, company politics, little mgmt, all usually come with it when programming professionally. Many of those tasks I consider less fun than the programming itself.
If this was generally perceived as fun, then Amazon would charge money for you to "play" mturk. The fact mturk work pays tells me that mturk is pretty much nobody's hobby.