Typically you don't get paid for watching or reading an advertisement on the internet. But an ecosystem of websites and apps flip that idea on its head. With a marketing strategy called "incentivized traffic," app developers take advertisements or other content that companies want to get in front of an attentive audience, and pay that audience to watch or interact with them.Do you run or work in a phone farm? Or know someone who does? We'd love to hear from you. You can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
An image of a phone farm uploaded to Mr. E Media's Discord server, belonging to the user Black Fox.
An image of a phone farm uploaded to Mr. E Media's Discord server, belonging to the user Goat_City.
For most of the week-long test period, Motherboard's phones ran the app Perk TV, whose website reads, "The more videos you watch the more Perk Points you earn. Exchange the points you earn for gift cards, prizes, sweepstakes, and more—absolutely free!" For watching videos—in our tests, mostly Netflix trailers—Perk TV rewards points. 1,000 points are worth $1. (Until recently you could exchange those points onto a Perk credit card; Perk discontinued the card last week).In all, we made 50 cents worth of Perk points."I [would] much rather be doing this than playing taxi, or delivering food for extra money."
An image of a phone farm uploaded to Mr. E Media's Discord server, belonging to the user Phen0m20.

