Microsalaries

A system of small payments for small jobs delivered instantly to the worker's bank account. Transactions are verified through digital or biometric identification. All kinds of small jobs in the future will become monetized, so that "having a job" will take on a more specific and temporary meaning. Currently many hours are wasted every day at work when workers have nothing to do. However people enjoy volunteering their time and efforts to help all kinds of projects, especially when it is not physically taxing. Examples of this are in the free software movement, charity organizations, Wikipedia, forums on the internet, etc. People volunteer their help, but there is no way to pay them for their work. Perhaps in the future there could be a system where such small actions are actually calculated by computer monitoring and your bank account increases every time you help an old lady cross the street, or do something kind for someone else. You may ask, but why put a $ on people's goodwill and humanity? Aren't we already too capitalistic and money-loving? But I say, why pay people to do anything? Why are any services rewarded with money? We might we as well develop a complicated system where small transactions, micro-payments and micro-salaries, occur, so that all good actions are financially rewarded.

Another way to look at this is that it would be an improved and variegated system of temp work. People will be able to live day by day doing odd jobs, similar to the second level of the computer game Flashback: Quest for Identity. Improvements in ID technology will allow a worker to sign up for one job, complete it within a matter of minutes or hours, sign up for another, all the while receiving instant payments to his checking account.

Microsalaries is a stupid term. There is already a word for this: "piece wages."