If you are correct in your impression that the poor are drawn to this job because they think it might lead to a more prestigious, high paying job, it is indeed a sad thing.

The WW interweb victimizes thousands if not millions in this country by the countless schemes offered. The gullible spend countless hours completing surveys and providing personal information on themselves and their friends and family. There is little or nothing at the end of the rainbow except more promises, 3-4 dollars worth of samples, and a few worthless coupons.

I hate the poverty that contributes to click farms emerging. They are so ridiculous it is easy to get angry about it but you could take away the poverty and throughout history there have always been schemes that victimize the hopeless and the ignorant.

In a free society there is at least choice. In a controlled economy there is a black market, in a totalitarian state there is forced labor.

The Gods Must Be Crazy is one way to look at it. The fable of the scorpion and the frog may be even better.

Humanity is like a nice chocolate cake, very appealing until some sob comes along and tells you about the rat feces and insect particles in the cake.

All you can do is do your best to be a good human, keep your sense of humor and hope we improve as a species.

You and I see this the same way. Grates on my nerves…and pisses me off…and I wanna slap something. I HATE IT.

It’s also sad to observe that if you flip that chart about its vertical axis, it depicts the financial fortunes of the American middle class.

But Tom, forget the damn numbers, and the tiny improvement in lives of squalor and misery. Is it right? Do you have any moral perspective at all? Does that graph absolve capitalism and America Inc. for any responsibility for their condition?

I think Americans tend to have tunnel vision about the necessity for money in an economy. In Bangladesh a large part of the economy must be based on barter, and so maybe people resorting to click farms really are just picking up the cash to get things only cash can buy. Maybe medicine and food before smokes and beer, but people can manage with very little money.

But “manage” isn’t exactly the good life. This story grates on my nerves for the contrast between the wealth to pay people to help cheat on a popularity contest on the one hand, and the abject misery of the people so desparate they’ll do it.

And your reference to “The Gods Must Be Crazy” was poignant. I’d credit the people in the Internet cafes in Bangladesh with not being savages around a computer. But I’m sure, living in Bangladesh, it would be hard to wrap your head around the concept of a distant people so wealthy and with so much leisure time that they’re willing pay even a pittance to cheat at a game of popularity.

It’s not the gods who must be crazy…

I really believe that these click farms are very important to the people. The movie ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy” comes to mind, though.

I pictured it as a rather stupid pastime of doubtful value to anyone. I pictured the “clickers” as piece workers that might show up or not depending on their need for a pack of smokes or a couple of beers. I could even picture kids in this country giving it a shot until they realized the futility. It really never occurred to me that people might be dying of exhaustion at the keyboard, with nowhere else to turn for livelihood.

Thousands of Workers in Bangladesh probably feel compelled to drag themselves into work at places with starvation wages and horrible conditions. The “click farm” wages are ridiculous and no doubt the conditions are equally unpleasant. The difference is I doubt the Bangladeshi consider the “click farms” to be a serious source of income.