The global digital assembly line has arrived. Its workers labor at computer keyboards, performing the behind-the-scenes tasks that make the Internet appear intelligent and functional. They assign labels like “family” or “theme park” to photos, check that Web URLs work, verify addresses on Yelp, review social media posts flagged as “adult.”
Corporations, from the smallest start-ups to the largest firms, can now “taskify” everything from scheduling meetings and debugging websites, to finding sales leads and managing fulltime employees' HR files. Instead of hiring help, firms just post their needs to the Web.
This online piecework, or “crowdwork,” represents a radical shift in how we define employment itself.
The individuals performing this work are of course not traditional employees, but neither are they freelancers. They are, instead, “users” or “customers” of Web-based platforms that deliver pre-priced tasks like so many DIY kits ready for assembly. Transactions are bound not by employee-employer relationships but by “user agreements” and Terms of Service that resemble software licenses more than any employment contract.
You can read the rest @
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0110-digital-turk-work-20160110-story.html
Bottom line - lower wages, no benefits, and the bosses at the top making BIG bucks.
But beyond that, once this system is perfected it will be shifted to robots. What will we all do for a living then?
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