How this index is put together

Earn Index is an independent editorial publication. It reads published research and official statistics about platform work and online side income, and writes short notes describing what was measured, by which instrument, and what the researchers said their result does not cover. It has no affiliation with any platform, employer, university or statistical agency, and it does not accept payment for coverage.

What gets covered

Selection follows one editorial interest: measurement. A study enters the index when it says something clear about how a number was produced — the population sampled, the reference period, the definition used, and the reason a later reading of the same phenomenon might differ. Estimates that were subsequently corrected by the authors or the issuing agency are of particular interest, because the correction is usually more informative than the original figure.

Studies are not selected because their conclusions are agreeable or striking. Where a paper is contested, the contest is described in the note rather than resolved in favour of one side.

How sources are cited

Every note names the researchers or the institution, the publication and the period. Figures are reported as the authors published them, in the units the authors used, without conversion, rounding or combination with figures from other studies. Where an estimate has been retracted by its author, it is described but not reprinted, because a withdrawn number carries no evidential weight.

Where a paper states limits on its own conclusions — populations it does not cover, costs it does not net out, hours it does not observe — those limits are reproduced in the note.

What this publication does not do

It does not provide professional, financial, investment, tax, legal, employment or career advice. It does not assess, diagnose or comment on anyone's individual circumstances. It offers no consultation, coaching, mentorship or one-to-one guidance of any kind. It does not describe any content as a method, system, formula or sequence of steps that produces an outcome, because published research about a population does not support statements of that shape.

It does not publish testimonials, customer reviews, endorsements, success stories or before-and-after accounts, in any section, and it does not collect them. This policy has no exceptions.

How we advertise

Where this publication is advertised, the advertising follows the same standard as the pages themselves. Advertisements describe what the publication contains — notes on published research about platform work and how those estimates are measured. They do not assert or assume anything about the situation, finances, employment, household or intentions of the person who sees them, and they do not address a presumed personal condition.

Advertisements do not promise a result, do not present a figure from a study as an outcome available to a reader, and do not use accounts of individual experience. The destination page corresponds to what the advertisement describes: an advertisement about a note on measurement leads to that note or to this index, not to an unrelated offer.

Corrections

Errors are corrected on the page where they appeared. Where a correction changes the substance of a note — a misattributed figure, a misdescribed sample, a misstated limit — the change is described at the foot of that note rather than made silently. Where a cited source is itself corrected or withdrawn by its author, the note is updated to record that, which is the subject this publication was built around.

Corrections can be requested in writing at [email protected]. Messages that identify a specific page and quote the passage in question are handled fastest.

Commercial disclosure

Reading the index costs nothing and requires no account. Where a paid compilation of notes is offered separately, that is stated plainly on the page offering it, and it is governed by the Terms of Access and the Refund Policy. No coverage decision on this site is influenced by any commercial arrangement, and no third party pays for placement, mention or favourable description.