As I was browsing the internet today I ended up finding GEM's, a Decentralized Mechanical Turk. It is a great project that saw a huge interest and support from the community. I really like what they are doing, I kind of thought and was hoping that I'd see this project happen on the blockchain. Well here it is, almost ready to be explored. The team behind it is young, ambitious and talented. A great combination for success, I am hopeful that they deliver. Well enough talking let's get into the problems GEM's would be able to solve and what solutions are proposed:
Problem 1: Fees
The Problem:
In centralized platforms, requesters who submit tasks to be performed are charged fees, which limits the amount workers can potentially be paid.
GEM Solution: No Fees
Gems does not charge a centralized fee for transactions on the platform. The only cost on the GEMs Platform is gas used on the Ethereum network.
Having no fees on the platform results in an efficient marketplace for both miners and task requesters. Simply, a complete removal of middlemen.
Problem 2: Participation
The Problem:
Workers in the micro task economy currently need to be approved before they can start work.
The Solution:
On the Gems Platform, users do not need to verify their identity to request and complete tasks. The reason for verifying identity is rooted in preventing misuse and abuse of the network.
The GEMs Protocol, and specifically the staking token mechanism, makes the Gems Platform less susceptible to this type of attacks.
More on Staking Method for Requesters
To prevent requesters who are malicious actors, requesters stake their GEMs incentivization pool for each task. Having requesters essentially put their reward in escrow ensures that requesters do not act in bad faith by reporting successfully completed tasks as incorrect.The process of having both miners and verifiers further reduces the cost for requesters and provide new avenues for miners to make money. Miners with high trust scores have the ability to earn more money by verifying other tasks. Because of the staking mechanism, miners have a disincentive to perform a task poorly, and thus, we assume that requesters do not have to hire as many miners for a particular dataset, lowering their total output cost or allowing them to label more data with the same financial constraints.
Problem 3: Payments
The Problem:
The payment processes on existing centralized platforms are not suitable for the unbanked.
Also other platforms such as Paypal takes a 2.9% fee + 0.30 per trans-action. With many for example Crowdflower workers earning only 0.03 a task, 0.30 + 2.9% results in a sizeable pay reduction.Bad for business.
The Solution:
Paid on the BlockChain via GEMs. Also Storing GEMs, just like any other ERC20 token,does not involve detailed information about your bank, allowing those who are unbanked and would like to participate to easily do so. Blockchain payments, through the Gems Payment Channels, will reduce unnecessary transaction fees, which will make transactions on the platform incredibly cost efficient.
An Explanatory Video:
Telegram: Group
Website: gems.org
