Last week news broke that Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) will close on Sept. 30. It’s a virtual ‘workplace’ that once had more than 500,000 workers signed up.But this isn’t just a story about the end of an aging technology platform. It’s a story of what happens when tech giants are allowed to build businesses based on the exploitation of workers, and then just walk away when the model no longer serves them.Amazon Mechanical Turk launched in late 2005 as part of Amazon’s growing lineup of services. Simply put, it was designed as a marketplace where employers, known as “requesters,” could post work for approved workers to complete. The tasks ranged from surveys and data collection to AI training, content moderation, and government work. They were often referred to as “microtasks” or “data work.” And while a handful of institutions embraced fair-pay guidelines, the work was typically underpaid.Nonetheless, the platform attracted hundreds of thousands of workers, many of whom, like me, relied on AMT as a full-time job. I’ve spoken at length in many venues about how I found myself on AMT. The short version is that I experienced a life-altering illness and needed to work from home. This was 2015, when remote work was far less common than it is today.Over the years, Amazon and its supporters have argued that Mechanical Turk was never intended to provide a full-time job. Others have suggested that workers were simply choosing to accept low pay. I can say from experience that I had no…

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