Amazon Mechanical Turk Shuts Down After 21 Years
Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourced labor platform operated by Amazon since 2005, is shutting down permanently at the end of September. According to an Amazon spokesperson, Montana MacLachlan, the decision was made after assessing the program's performance and adjusting accordingly.
The platform allows workers to complete small tasks such as content rewriting, transcribing, and data labeling for low pay, averaging around $5 per hour. Despite criticism over its meager wages, thousands of people have used it to earn additional income, with some users reporting earnings of up to $93,000.
The platform's closure has sparked a mix of reactions from users, with some expressing sadness and loss, while others remain optimistic about finding new opportunities. One user commented on the Mechanical Turk subreddit, 'We made something work that not a lot of people understood or could do for a living.'