A chart that shows total HITs, rewards, and projects. At the moment, I don't think the market is favoring the worker. http://hyperion.stern.nyu.edu/mturk/ The authors blog: http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2009/02/monitoring-dynamics-of-mechanical-turk.html
As a dedicated and full time worker, I can tell them exactly what the problem is: They don't pay well enough! I too, will work on a few new hits. I note the time it takes me and how many hits I can reasonably do in one hour. If I can't make at minimum, 3 dollars an hour or more, I stop doing the hits and find something that pays for my time. The work will get done when they are willing to pay what it's worth--and not until! And no, the marketplace is not set up for the workers. And that is our fault for not refusing to accept low paying hits. You want better pay? Stop working for nothing. We are freelancers, people. We can get whatever pay we want as soon as we realize that we have the talent and they don't have the time to do the work themselves.
Thanks for posting that ... especially the blog. It's a fascinating look inside the mind of one of our "bosses."
oh, that is something i've wondered about -especially when you see '50,000 hits available', but most are probably a penny or 2. now if only we could see THOSE stats posted when we signed in. i swear i'd probably have to quit this turk biz if i couldn't get at least one chuckle out of it daily. today i was doing a big batch of hits to assign 'degree of relevancy' to pairs of search queries using medical terms. in the middle of pairs like colonoscopy / colon cancer was this pair of terms: migraines / racial tension headache. and i almost clicked on 'somewhat relevant' before i snapped to the joke.