Mechanical Turk is an online market that has tasks requesters can submit so that workers can get paid for them. The tasks can be anything from taking surveys, to writing articles, to proofreading, to verifying addresses and more.

Anybody who works on Mechanical Turk will have a difficult time making any sort of a living. Its almost impossible to earn even the lowest amount a normal employer would be required to give you, according to Panagiotis Ipeirotis, who is a business professor. Some workers who spend an excessive amount of time on the site may be able to earn up to 1k a month, according to some surveys. Most workers spend less than a day using the site, netting them less than $20/week.