An early pillar of the gig economy and the hidden labor behind modern tech is officially coming to an end as Amazon is permanently shuttering Mechanical Turk on Wednesday after 21 years in operation.
Launched in 2005 as a platform where human workers could perform quick digital chores that early software couldn’t handle, the marketplace became a fixture for researchers, remote freelancers, and data labelers worldwide — and its exit is triggering a wave of nostalgia and anxiety across online forums.
Built around the concept of “Human Intelligence Tasks” (HITs) — small jobs like transcription, image labeling, and survey responses often paying just cents apiece — the service bridged the gap between human judgment and computing power long before generative models existed.
But as modern AI tools began automating those exact simple tasks, and with workers themselves increasingly turning to AI to complete assignments, the platform’s original utility blurred. Amazon stopped onboarding new clients earlier this summer before quietly confirming the full closure, leaving a dedicated base of long-time “turkers” scrambling for alternative flexible work.
Across forums like Reddit’s r/mturk, long-time workers and community members shared their surprise, nostalgia, and disappointment over the platform’s closure. We rounded up a selection of reactions from online discussions reflecting on the end of MTurk:
“End of an era. MTurk was a huge part of my daily routine for a long time, and seeing it shut down genuinely feels like losing a piece of my life. It wasn’t just about the extra cash — it was the habit, the community, and knowing I could log on anytime to put work in.”
“I had to leave my job when our twins were born and in the nicu. I didn’t know what we were going to do. We barely kept our heads above water until I found Turk. I made enough to pull us out of the debt we created and then I was able to do enough to cover our mortgage and car. It was a huge blessing at that time. I haven’t worked on there since 2021 when it started going downhill, but I will always be so thankful for it. I’m so sad about it shutting down.”
“Mturk gave me time to recover during a very rough patch in my life and was the gateway to being able to work remotely for the last ten years. I stopped using it regularly around 2023, and last did any hit around March, but will always be thankful for the impact that it had.”
“I once got paid $5 to listen to recordings of robots laughing and rate each one for how realistic it sounds. Each and every audio clip was the stuff of nightmares.”
“I made almost $700 in a day once off a batch of MLData HITs where I had to rate clothes and shoes on different aspects. I used it to buy myself a new laptop!”
“I truly am sad to see this place go. I found it years ago when a very close loved one passed away. It took my mind off the loss and I made $15k doing it part time whenever I had the energy. I was always so grateful for it. That’s why I hate to see it go. I really appreciated it. I wonder why Amazon didn’t just sell it to another company.”
Mechanical Turk may be shutting down, but AI will always depend on data workers whose knowledge trains and tunes models. AI runs on extracted cultural skills and knowledge, and culture is always changing.Less the end of an era, but the end of an early prototype.
— Lilly Irani (@gleemie.bsky.social) 2026-08-26T01:24:23.386Z
“I have to admit this announcement hit me harder than it really should. I’ve barely done any turking over the last four years yet losing turk altogether feels like such a huge change. It’s just always been there for so long.”
“It also helped me quit smoking because my rule when I quit was, I could go buy cigarettes but had to make the money for them on MTurk first. And seriously, after grinding out to make that money, no f*ckin’ way I was going to go blow that money on cigs!”
“Ended up making 19.6k on this site. Was hoping to get to 20k but it just slowed down so much over the last two years. … Ended up making 11k in one month back in 2023, and still have some of it saved. I don’t if I’ll ever experience pay like that again.”
“I remember my highest paying hit was like $20 and it felt like CHRISTMAS.”
“Still waiting for that email from MTurk saying they’ve reversed their decision and will continue the platform with new updates and improvements.”