The problem becomes when globalisation occurs, and those companies are no longer competitive against foreign car companies. The Australian government tried to bail out the automotive industry, twice, and it still collapsed. There are no longer any cars manufactured in Australia with Holden (GM), Ford and Toyota all leaving in recent years.

Yes, you can introduce metrics of number of employees (direct and indirect), tax paid per employee, etc etc. But consumers won't pay double just because the car created a job in their country.

Also, does your current setup have any problems (perhaps scaling)?

If the answers are no, yes, no then I'd not change a thing.

Otherwise perhaps look at using Turk for labeling and your working crew as reviewers. It may only take a small number of badly labeled images to cost more than you save.

https://squadrun.co/

Also, the whole thing makes me think of the original plot of The Matrix - the one where humans are used as co-processors rather than very inefficient organic batteries. The Wachowskis stated that at the time they thought people wouldn't understand the former, so they went with the latter. Today I can absolutely picture farms of people born in pods living in virtual reality where everyone has the equivalent of an AMT job and nobody finds it weird that you're paid to solve made-up problems because duh, everyone does that. Maybe at first 80% of people would work in some sort of management job so the machines can learn how to manage people and then gradually displace them.

To be covered by the Federal minimum wage, one must be a "covered nonexempt" employee. There are two ways in which an employee can be covered by the law: "enterprise coverage" and "individual coverage." [1]

  Enterprise Coverage

  Employees who work for certain businesses or organizations (or "enterprises") are
  covered by the FLSA. These enterprises, which must have at least two employees, are:

    (1) those that have an annual dollar volume of sales or business done of at least
        $500,000
    (2) hospitals, businesses providing medical or nursing care for residents, schools and
        preschools, and government agencies

  Individual Coverage

  Even when there is no enterprise coverage, employees are protected by the FLSA if their
  work regularly involves them in commerce between States ("interstate commerce"). The FLSA
  covers individual workers who are "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for
  commerce."

  Examples of employees who are involved in interstate commerce include those who: produce
  goods (such as a worker assembling components in a factory or a secretary typing letters
  in an office) that will be sent out of state, regularly make telephone calls to persons
  located in other States, handle records of interstate transactions, travel to other States
  on their jobs, and do janitorial work in buildings where goods are produced for shipment
  outside the State.

Or Turkers are covered under FLSA because their work involves commerce between states. Because their work itself is literally commerce between states on its face -- the writen work product is sent over the Internet -- I don't see how you weasel out of that one.

I don't see how Turkers could be exempt from FLSA, but IANAL.

[1] - https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs14.htm

"Places", or "countries" might have low minimum wage compared to US or even below the average of world. But no minimum wage at all seems unlikely.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...

I wonder if there is a 18+ check involved.

> To me the answer is to tell yourself that it's not work but a hobby that happens to pay, and at least seek out work that pays minimum wage in your area, if that applies.

But it isn't a hobby; it is paid; hence work.

From Wikipedia: "A Hobby is a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time."

The type of labour on Amazon Turk is extremely repetitive just like (physical) hard labour. The goal also isn't pleasure, and the income isn't a gift; it is part of one's income (I wonder if it is being tracked though).

I also find the name Amazon Turk offensive. I am aware that the word Turk has multiple meanings, but in a good part of the 90s in Europe cheap labour and Turkish people went hand in hand. It was the kind of labour the native Europeans didn't want to do (e.g. garbagemen), it paid very badly.

Now we are at the next step of globalisation and because the competition goes via the Internet the lowest common denominator becomes standard. Which is very bad for those who are unemployed, underskilled, homeless etc in higher civilized countries where the standard of living is higher, but so is things like rent. Heck, I wouldn't even be able to pay my rent with Amazon Turk.

> The same thing happens on freelancer sites. Jobs for pennies on the dollar of their worth are fought over by people barely making it in the US, and people who are enjoying a rather livable stream of income in other countries.

Yes, and fake freelance like Uber and MLM.