It seems to me that it is not a property of bitcoin or cryptocurrency itself that is allowing these folks to supplement their income with "manual" labor. Instead it feels like the fact that it's a new, relatively unexploited market that is enabling these ventures to scrape together the people and resources necessary by using extremely thin margins. I can't imagine this will be viable for long as more people get into it.
Sure, you can provide clicks in exchange for bitcoin, and that might help some homeless people right now. But what happens when that becomes over-saturated and/or youtube et. al. get better at preventing that? Amazon Turk + BTC could be viable.
> This is the only property for which Dale is currently accepting digital currency, but so far, he says, “it’s been a good experience because bitcoins have gone up in value, so it’s more than I would have gotten in regular dollars.”
I bet he won't be so happy when the price swings in the other direction. Therein lies the eternal problem with BTC for trade on a scale even beginning to approach that of what goes on in the world today.
Sure, you can provide clicks in exchange for bitcoin, and that might help some homeless people right now. But what happens when that becomes over-saturated and/or youtube et. al. get better at preventing that? Amazon Turk + BTC could be viable.
> This is the only property for which Dale is currently accepting digital currency, but so far, he says, “it’s been a good experience because bitcoins have gone up in value, so it’s more than I would have gotten in regular dollars.”
I bet he won't be so happy when the price swings in the other direction. Therein lies the eternal problem with BTC for trade on a scale even beginning to approach that of what goes on in the world today.