September 2026 — The Month in Hindsight

On September 5, micro1 posted "Hiring 10,000 robotics trainers over the next 7 days for one of our biggest projects yet" and it drew 349 comments. Four days later, on r/dataannotation, "Are we helping or causing harm?" drew 117. On September 26, a Mercor worker posted "PROJECT VAULT OFFBOARDED" in capital letters and 154 people answered. We tracked 1,609 Reddit posts across eight platforms in September. That is about half of what we usually catch, and I owe you an explanation before anything else.

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First, an Apology

This issue is thinner than it should be. I stepped away from the computer for a minute in the middle of September, and the collector that pulls Reddit posts for this letter stopped running on the 14th. Through September 13 we were catching roughly 100 posts a day, the normal pace. From the 14th to the 30th we caught about 240 posts total, and almost all of those came from one board, Mercor, which kept flowing for reasons I am still working out. The other seven platforms went dark in our data for the back half of the month.

So read the numbers below as a half month, not a month. Where I compare September to August, the drop is mostly me, not the market. I am not going to pretend otherwise or pad the gap with guesses. The platform recap pages linked below were written separately and cover the full month, so lean on those for anything that happened after the 14th. I am repairing the collector now, and the October issue will say plainly how much of October it caught.

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Hiring Is the Loudest Word on the Board

Here is the one thing September's data says that August's did not. The top issue tag across all eight platforms was actively hiring, at 189 posts. In August it was sixth. Technical issues, bans, empty queues, and droughts all sat behind it.

Nearly all of that is micro1. On September 5 the company posted a recruiting call for 10,000 robotics video annotators, $50 to $90 an hour, $300 per referral, no AI experience required, Western countries prioritized. The post ran to 349 comments. The next three days produced the kind of threads you do not usually see on this board: "Made it! 10k Generalist project" with 233 comments, "IT HAPPENED!" with 209 comments and 349 upvotes, "I got selected after 33 applications!!" with 183. And beside them, "Anyone selected yet for generalist role," 178 comments of people refreshing.

micro1 was also the only platform in September where positive posts outnumbered negative ones, 76 to 52. In July it was the loudest room on the board because of a broken hiring funnel. In September it was the loudest room because the funnel opened. Same platform, same people, opposite mood. The thing to watch is what those 10,000 people are posting in November.

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DataAnnotation: The Question Underneath the Queue

DataAnnotation's most commented thread of the month was not about pay or the dashboard. It was titled "Are we helping or causing harm?" and the opening line was "How do y'all justify doing this work ethically if you're anti-AI?" The poster had done the work on and off for years, had recently recommended DA to a friend, and "got a real side eye." 117 comments.

The next day: "Seeing all the AI news lately... I'm done with DA." The poster is disabled, describes the income as hard to replace, and quits anyway. "If you see the dangers and damage of AI and can get by without the income, I urge you to join me. Yes, I'm aware that most people will not." 54 comments, zero upvotes, which on that board usually means a fight in the replies.

Underneath that, the structural picture did not change. Empty queue was DA's top tag at 69, work drought second at 46. "Blocked?" drew 46 comments from people discovering the dashboard had gone dark without a message. High earnings still turned up 19 times, so the coding queue is still paying someone. September recap.

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Mercor: Vault Closes, Academy Opens

Mercor is the one platform we kept collecting all month, so its numbers are real. 399 posts, 115 negative against 31 positive, and the top tag was account bans at 45, with actively hiring right behind at 41. Both at once, again.

The month started with "Let's boycott screener 4," 58 comments: "until Mercor or the client provides actual consistent guidance no one should take the screener. There's strength in numbers." It ended with "PROJECT VAULT OFFBOARDED" on September 26, 154 comments, followed three days later by "Offboarded from Project Valt. Anyone left on that project?" and "For those who still in Project Vult Slack channel." If you were on Vault and you are reading this, the thread is where the others went.

In between, on September 14, two Mercor employees posted under their own names about the launch of Mercor Academy. 45 comments, 86 upvotes, the most upvoted Mercor post of the month. Workers who had just been offboarded from one project were being invited to train for the next one. One more from the last week that deserves a flag: "Mercor suspended me within minutes of logging in while traveling abroad - am I screwed?" The geo telemetry is not a rumor. Log in from where you signed up. September recap.

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Outlier: Five Years and One Paste

Outlier logged 193 posts in our half month, 120 negative and 6 positive. Bans were the top tag at 57. The thread I want you to read is "Banned after 4-5 years." The poster is an Oracle, the top reviewer tier, five years on the platform. She was banned for copying and pasting a model identifier into a task, which, in her words, "was explicitly authorized by the project QMs and was required." Anyone who attended the webinars got the same instruction. "When one contributor is unfairly banned that is one too many."

Elsewhere, the Aether project produced the most commented Outlier thread, 55 comments on "Aether suddenly says Continue onboarding after I already had access to tasking?" Workers who had been tasking that morning found themselves back at the start of onboarding that afternoon with no notice. "Is outlier the worst?" and "Outlier is a scam" filled out the top five.

Housekeeping for California workers: the final approval hearing for the $12.5 million Scale AI misclassification settlement is set for October 30. September recap.

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Handshake AI: Paid Last, Banned First

Handshake's two top tags tied at 35 each: payment issues and account bans. The most commented thread puts them in the same sentence. "Suddenly got my account banned, I was not even working on any project currently nor logged in the account in last 6 days." The poster says Handshake owed more than $5,000 for submitted work and the ban arrived before the payout. "What a masterstroke HAI!" 55 comments.

Second was a worker whose weekly cap on a project went from 100 hours to 40 to 30 inside a week, with the project pausing on Thursdays regardless. Third and fifth were "Got removed from project after performing well" and "Handshake AI payment dispute." Six positive posts in the whole half month. September recap.

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The Smaller Rooms

Alignerr, 54 posts. The month belonged to a project called Pulsar. "Alignerr Pulsar - is it worth it?" and "Pulsar project" and "What were your scores for Pulsar Training?" led the board, and the question inside all three was whether the assessments are paid. Then "Added to a $1,000 per task project and ghosted?", several days of submitted work, admins online and deleting messages in Discord but not answering. Two positive posts. September recap.

Telus AI, 46 posts. Zero positive. The weekly no-tasks thread drew 74 comments. "Final warning email" drew 32 from a worker six weeks in who had never received a first warning. And a new productivity extension arrived with a line in the email that "the extension will automatically pause once you click outside of Raterhub," which set off a round of people asking whether research in a second tab still counts as paid time. Nobody in the thread had a confirmed answer. September recap.

Stellar AI, 4 posts. The top one, with 21 upvotes, was "Respectfully, I need to know… is Stellar AI defunct in the world of AI platforms?" The poster asks why the entry test is still open daily if there is no work behind it. Nobody from Stellar answered. September recap.

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Platform Color From Our Own Data

Eight platforms, ranked by September volume. Remember that every platform except Mercor is a 13-day count.

micro1 — 405 posts. Top tag actively hiring, 115. The only board with more positive than negative. The 10,000-person robotics call and the selection threads that followed.

Mercor — 399 posts, full month. Top tags account bans 45, actively hiring 41, empty queue 33. Vault offboarded, Academy launched, screener 4 boycotted.

DataAnnotation — 336 posts. Top tags empty queue 69, work drought 46. The ethics thread and the quitting thread sat on top of the usual drought.

Outlier AI — 193 posts. Top tags account bans 57, technical 44. 120 negative to 6 positive, the worst ratio on the board. Aether onboarding resets and the five-year Oracle ban.

Handshake AI — 172 posts. Top tags payment 35, bans 35. A $5,000 balance and a ban in the same week.

Alignerr — 54 posts. Top tag technical 14. Pulsar, and a $1,000-per-task project gone silent.

Telus AI — 46 posts. Top tag technical 17. Final warnings and a timer extension nobody fully understands yet.

Stellar AI — 4 posts. Top tag empty queue 3. "Is Stellar AI defunct?"

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Keep Your Own Copy

Across the 1,609 posts we caught, 150 were positive and 494 were negative, which is a slightly better ratio than August, and micro1's hiring wave accounts for most of the improvement. Take it out and September looks like August: bans, droughts, and payment disputes in the same order.

Three threads this month were from people who lost access to money they had already earned. The Handshake worker with $5,000 outstanding. The Alignerr workers on the $1,000-per-task project. The Outlier Oracle with five years of history. In every case the platform-side record vanished with the account. Screenshot your timers, your task IDs, your completion screens, and your pay statements at the end of every session. That copy on your own machine is the only one that survives a ban.

And if you are one of the 10,000 who got into micro1 this month, congratulations, and start that habit on day one.

I will have the full month next time.

Until next time.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

— Josh

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