• carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    paying data labelers roughly one US cent for every task they finish, which can take hours. It’s a system Kanyugi compared to “modern slavery.

    The article kinda ignores the fact that despite the horrible pay and work, it must be a much better job for these people than anything else they can get in their country because they continue to subject themselves to it. How bad are things when 1 or 2 pennies a day is the best that’s available? I don’t understand how you could live on < $1 a month in any country no matter how poor.

    Edit: I’m not saying it’s ok, I’m in no way in support of it. You guys are reading me wrong.

    I’m saying I genuinely don’t understand the math here.

    • traches@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      This is the classic argument used to justify exploiting people in developing nations. In reality the incentive is to keep them living in poverty, so they can keep paying a pittance. Businesses will go to extreme lengths to maintain these conditions.

      • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I’m not saying it’s ok, I’m in no way in support of it. You guys are reading me wrong.

        I’m saying I genuinely don’t understand the math here.

        • IronBird@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          …there are more people than there are jobs… no job = no money

          all land is accounted for too, no place left to “strike out on your own”

          so, if there are no jobs and you have no land/property…you have only what others are willing/able to give you, same as anyone else in that same position anywhere else.

          and just like everywhere else, they arent cared for not because they can’t afford to, but because keeping miserable homeless people around is a nice reminder of just how much worse you could have it…so don’t test your luck.

    • SippyCup@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      You know I’ve put myself through some genuinely awful jobs because I foolishly believed that the job in question had some feature I just couldn’t get anywhere else. Either it paid slightly better, my friends worked there, or it was inside at a desk and didn’t have weekends.

      Every time I’d end up getting fired from one of those jobs, though I think I survived at one or two long enough to quit, I’d end up finding a new awful job that was actually slightly better. And the cycle would begin anew. And I wasn’t the only one, most of the people working those jobs could tell you a similar story.

      My point is, if you can convince people that it’s worse anywhere else, they’ll put up with quite a bit. More to that point, my current job has occasional weekends, is not climate controlled, and my desk is really just for taking breaks at, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Because the things that make a job good are not the things that most people associate with good jobs. Which makes it easier to manipulate them in to keeping really bad ones.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s not addressing the question of pay. Just commented that any other activity would pay more. Begging, hunting for change on the street, etc. There’s no way they get 1-2 pennies a day.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, math doesn’t add up here. Literally any other activity would pay more or be of more benefit. Begging would drag in far more than that.