How do we better support “click farm” workers of the online economy? Click farm workers are paid to generate clicks and “likes” on webpages and they otherwise drive traffic to particular websites or social media posts. They are currently located in impoverished areas, especially in developing regions. Their pay is very low and the conditions under which they work are exploitative.

Economics Professor Yann Moulier Boutang argues we should draw on the concept of cognitive capital when thinking about the importance of these workers to the new digital economy. This term refers to the collective knowledge and income drawn from click worker’s online cooperation.

Boutang argues these workers could be compensated through taxed monetary transactions online. He also believes the biggest and most profitable search engines like Google should be taxed on the per click rates for ads.

Learn more on the video below.