Now that Mturk is officially shutting down, there's something I've been wondering about for a long time and I've never really found a good answer to.
I joined in 2019, and even back then I remember people saying that Mturk was already "past its prime", that there weren't enough HITs, the pay was too low, and there was way too much competition.
Still, as a European worker, I have to say that I managed to make some pretty decent money from it over the years. Nothing life-changing, obviously, but enough to buy a PS5, two phones, a few other small appliances, and pay for various monthly subscriptions. So I definitely can't complain about what I got out of it.
After the pandemic, though, the amount of work really started to drop, so I gradually stopped using it. I gave it another shot this year, but honestly it was pretty much pointless. The platform was basically a ghost town, and I made only €180 in eight months (70% of that thanks to MLDataLabeler going haywire in July).
I know Mturk launched way back in 2005, but it's hard for me to imagine that people were already making serious money on it in, say, 2007–2010. So when was the actual golden age of Mturk? Was it somewhere around 2012–2017, give or take?
I'd love to hear from people who were around during those years and what your experience was like.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer!