Thinking Space Technology
Can you really make a living from that?
Everyone is talking about digital nomads and clickworkers. But what’s the real story from their own perspective? Four of them tell us what exactly it is they do, where and how they do it – and whether they’re getting rich from it.
“This sort of life doesn’t suit everyone”
I never wanted to work in an office like everyone else – but I also wasn’t sure what exactly it was I wanted to do instead. Back in those days, the term “digital nomad” didn’t exist. But I knew I wanted to have a job that wouldn’t involve me forcing myself to head in to the office every day. When I told my family about my plans, they weren’t exactly thrilled: they suggested I find myself something safe first – do an apprenticeship or get a degree.
Timo Eckardt, 28, digital nomad
To please my family, I actually signed up for university, and studied business and sociology. But once I graduated, I immediately started working as freely and independently as I’d imagined doing in the first place: I teamed up with a colleague and started a “Podcast for Digital Nomads”. It’s pretty well received. So far, we’ve had about three million downloads.
We also offer a starter package with various coaching sessions for aspiring digital nomads. We’re very successful at it and have now got an annual six-figure turnover. So I’ve got to a position where I can now make a living from it and work from just about anywhere. In recent months, this has mainly been Hamburg, Malaysia, Poland and Latvia. It feels great to be able to travel so much and work from wherever I fancy. I’m happy with the way things are.
But – as great as all this may be – there are also downsides, of course: you’ve always only got yourself to rely on. You work at your own risk and you’ve got no safety net. You’ve got to carry the entire responsibility yourself, be very structured and make provisions for all possible scenarios, for example if a customer pays late or you fall ill. Some colleagues end up failing – this kind of life just doesn’t work for everyone.
Nevertheless, I think we’ll be seeing an increasing number of digital nomads in the coming years. This is probably also due to the influence of social media, which portrays digital nomadic life in a very glamorous way: laptop in hand, relaxing in a hammock at the sea, here and there a few palm trees in the background – but when you really give it a go in reality, you quickly realise this is only a superficial picture and that there’s much, much more going on behind it.
“Right now, this lifestyle suits me perfectly”
For a long time, I worked in ordinary jobs – as a software tester and as a project management assistant in a web agency. I stayed at that agency for quite a while – a total of four years. In August 2016, I heard a talk about combining work and travel. I found it enormously interesting – and thought about trying it out myself: working while travelling.
Michael Hörnlimann, 28, digital nomad
I spoke to lots of people about it, but they all had their doubts. They used to say: “Are you absolutely sure?” or “What if it doesn’t work out?”. My reply was that the only way I could find out was to try. I quit my job – and felt free at last. Just like a hamster who steps off his little treadmill and starts thinking about what else there is to discover.
I’ve now been self-employed on a full-time basis since April 2018. I can decide on my own when, where and how I work. The only requirement, of course, is that I have access to a stable and fast WLAN connection. I’ve been travelling abroad a lot, to Argentina and New Zealand, among other places, and each time I worked on the road.
My clients are private individuals or small and medium-sized companies. I’m able to make a decent living. On the one hand, I do earn less than before; on the other hand, I also spend less compared to the times when I was employed. In addition, I also keep my fixed costs as low as possible. And I’m happy with that: right now, this lifestyle suits me perfectly. I never think about quitting.
And I’m not the only one living like this; the trends is upwards, with the number of digital nomads on the increase. But from my point of view, it’s not a significant rise. In my experience, people in the US are quicker to decide in favour of working remotely than in Europe (especially Germany, Switzerland and Austria). The need for social security is simply very high here.
Still, I expect working on the go to become even more normal in the future – and working from home and in cafés more common. Many companies, whether large or small, will most likely go global to find the best workers in their respective fields.
“A very hard way to make a living”
“I cared for my sick mother at home for ten years until she died – after that, I was employed by my father as a domestic help. He passed away in 2019. I’ve been on sick leave myself for a long time and I’m receiving just over 300 euros in sick pay. Of course, I can’t live on that amount alone.”
Michaela Nick, 47 years, clickworker
That’s why I’m trying to earn a little extra money as a clickworker. An online search for ways to “make money” – during which several clickworking platforms came up – gave me the idea. I signed up to all the platforms and got my first job right away: transferring the addresses of web pages into a table. For this, I earned 0.05 cents per address.
What followed was a whole lot of different assignments: surveys, multiple-choice tests, that sort of thing. I earned between 0.02 cent and 15 euros for this work – but unfortunately, not only are the well-paid assignments very rare, but they always get snapped up quickly too. That’s why payment per click is almost always only at a rate of well under a cent.
I work about six hours a day as a clickworker – not however with a fixed 10am to 4pm, but rather whenever it suits me. I really appreciate the fact that I’m free to arrange my working hours to suit myself. I’ve even done jobs from four to six in the morning. I also work my six-hours-a-day at the weekend – but normally there are much fewer jobs on Saturdays and Sundays; most are during the week.
I accumulate around 180 hours of clickworking per month, maybe even a few more, and I earn about 150 euros. Calculated in terms of an hourly rate, it’s very poorly paid, of course. In addition, I’m not covered by social security or protected in any way. If things don’t go smoothly, I can hardly defend my rights – or only with great difficulty. One time, for instance, I didn’t receive any money, although I’d done the job.
If I’m honest, it’s a very hard way to make a living. But I still keep doing it because I can’t do without the money. 150 euros is a great deal for me and it makes a real difference. But if I had a wish, I’d like to stop clickworking and start a normal job – maybe as a carer or companion for an old lady.
“A nice side job to supplement the salary”
“I’m a trained business assistant, specialising in foreign languages. But since I couldn’t get a foothold anywhere following school, I ended up in every job seeker’s nightmare – a call centre, initially on the technical support hotline, later in complaints management. In 2015, I just couldn’t take it anymore and started my own business as a web copywriter.”
Alexis Gentzsch, 36, clickworker
I signed up on what is probably the most popular copywriting portal. That was quite easy and I was able to start almost immediately after my sample text had been accepted. The assignments were divided into categories and requirements for the copywriter. It was also the first time I’d heard about clickworking and said to myself: this is a fantastic way to get started and earn a few extra bucks.
So while I was writing webcopy, I was also taking on clickworking assignments on the side: my very first job as a clickworker was a little Google search. The task was to search for terms and enter the top search result. After that, I ventured into product descriptions and things like typing out sound recordings or making my own voice recordings for an AI.
In the meantime, I still take clickworking jobs, but not on a regular basis. Sometimes I accept 20 jobs a month, sometimes only two or three. My earnings depend on the client. I like simple surveys; I get paid one euro per piece. Company descriptions are also easy to type; I get three euros per piece for 160 words. For 220 words the payment increases to nine euros.
But, unfortunately, well-paying jobs are very scarce. I’d even go so far as to say that 80 per cent of copywriting jobs are borderline exploitative – I find it outrageous when you’re supposed to make a video of yourself in return for a few cents. If you’re not willing to type or click your fingers to the bone, clickwork can never be the foundation for earning a living.
It’s more like a nice side job to supplement the salary. But if you look at clickworking as such, it has real benefits: you get paid quickly, you can work from home, manage your time freely and decide for yourself how much you want to do. Therefore, I believe that there’ll be more clickworkers in the future. Especially if someday the jobs are paid at least a little bit better.