I have a master’s degree. I have a good job in my field. I have a car, and an apartment, and all the signs of outward success. However, my job barely allows me to pay the bills every month. I live paycheck to paycheck, and I have very little money for fun. I work full time, but I have odd night and weekend hours, on top of regular 9-5, so a second job isn’t a real option for me. I take my work laptop home with me, and use unsecured wireless because I can’t afford to update my 1st gen iMac. I’m embarrassed that I’m whoring out my over-educated mind on mturk, doing mindless outsourcing tasks for pennies. I’m also a member of a number of online consumer survey sites, where my thoughts on shampoo and fast food restaurants earn me $0.20-$1 each. The academic part of me thinks that mturk and the online survey sites are an interesting sociological experiment. The capitalist in search of a new computer is only interested in how much money I can make, and ignores any hits under $0.20. A very small part of me wants to lie so I can qualify for the $30 hit. I’m still not sure why I’m doing this whole mturk/survey think. I’m really not. Will I stop once I’ve make enough to purchase that computer? Or will I keep on participating in this social experiment? All I know is I’m just doing this hit for the few extra cents it will throw me.