[gridlockd]

I'm not saying it's "OK" in the moral sense. It's of course morally better to pay people fairly than to exploit their situation, but it's also morally better to exploit their situation than not doing anything for them, or even make their lives worse by removing the opportunity to "get exploited" - for the purpose of moral posturing.

[mighty_bander]

These companies that we all work at get millions in funding, and are happy to pay programmers 150k+ a year because they need them to succeed. The difference between a dollar and hour and five is negligible to these organisations at the levels most of them are using this sort of labour. This is rarely a choice between paying subsistence wages and none at all - instead it's a choice between subsistence wages and making a decent living.

There's also the fact that people who are affected, who slip out the bottom of whatever calculation is going on, are going to have more opportunities locally if their peers are still employed doing more profitable work.

I see a lot of people fall for the argument that starvation wages are an alternative to no wages, and it's not true now any more than it was when the industrialists tried it in the 19th century. Standard of living, wherever it may be, is better off when money is in the hands of ordinary working people.

[gridlockd]

> These companies that we all work at get millions in funding, and are happy to pay programmers 150k+ a year because they need them to succeed.

They're not happy to pay that much, they just need to pay that much because that's the rate for programmers in the area. You can easily get far cheaper programmers from abroad, but then you'll need to manage that. You can also move your whole company abroad but then you're further from venture capital.

Also, with programmers there's this meme that a bad programmer will ruin you, so you need to get "good programmers" at all costs. A programmer can't really go out and say "I'm not that good, but I'll make up for it by charging less!". Unlike clickworker output, programmer output is not fungible.

> The difference between a dollar and hour and five is negligible to these organisations at the levels most of them are using this sort of labour.

That's your uninformed claim. A quadrupling in compensation is a quadrupling in cost. Whether that cost is negligible depends on the amount of work relative to all other work. If you have a company working on AI solutions, the cost of labeling can easily be one of the most significant positions.

> This is rarely a choice between paying subsistence wages and none at all - instead it's a choice between subsistence wages and making a decent living.

These people are not paid wages, they are not employees, they are directly compensated for what they produce. To pay wages, you first need a company to pay those wages, which implies that these companies are compensated for what they produce. Companies don't get a guaranteed minimum compensation, they need to go by the market rate. For the same reason, clickworkers need to go by the market rate.

> There's also the fact that people who are affected, who slip out the bottom of whatever calculation is going on, are going to have more opportunities locally if their peers are still employed doing more profitable work.

How is that a "fact"? If you're doing clickwork, that means you're at the bottom in terms of earning potential. It means every conceivable opportunity around you is worse, be that financially or in terms of working conditions. Why would they suddenly have more opportunity?

> I see a lot of people fall for the argument that starvation wages are an alternative to no wages, and it's not true now any more than it was when the industrialists tried it in the 19th century. Standard of living, wherever it may be, is better off when money is in the hands of ordinary working people.

What does that imply? What are you actually saying should happen?

[dragonwriter]

> To pay wages, you first need a company to pay those wages,

No, individuals without any kind of “company” can and do pay wages to employees, e.g., domestic staff.

[gridlockd]

You're missing the point. Nobody hires a "domestic clickworker". The government doesn't hire clickworkers. Non-profit organizations don't hire click workers. So who is left? For-profit companies.

There are for-profit companies employing click workers and those workers are indeed employees, but if you work on the platforms like mturk directly, you are not an employee and you do not receive a wage. As a result, you get to keep more of the money, not less.