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It is absolutely true that they are not a survey site, but rather a site that has tasks, some of those tasks being surveys. It is not true that they only have tasks that you do for "2 or 5 cents each", or that all the work is geared to "people in very poor countries" - it certainly does look like that on first glance, because there are absolutely a lot more HITs like that than anything else. I was absolutely sceptical at first, as well, and trying to figure it out at first felt like jumping straight into the deep end without learning to swim, but once you know what you're doing, it is crazy good money (I mean, by comparison to other sites where you can get paid to take surveys - obviously not crazy good money in comparison to, you know, actual professional career jobs, but that's not what you'd be comparing against. You'd be comparing against GTM, OO, etc, and mturk is head and shoulders above all those. If you know what you're doing.) The biggest draw of mturk is that, unlike "survey sites", which either give you a single survey at a time, or at best, a list of survey numbers where you have to fish around blindly and have little to no idea how good a particular survey will be until you're well into it and discover it stinks... with mturk, you have an enormous list of tasks, a small fraction of which are surveys, and a small fraction of those being good... but you can find only those good ones, and just take those, and notably, there's a community of helpful people that makes finding those easier if you know where to look. (Notably, /r/hitsworthturkingfor, and the turkopticon greasemonkey script.) There are absolutely surveys that have screeners, and it's completely up to the individual requester whether or not those screeners are paid (turkers hate unpaid screeners, though, and requesters know this), and whether to specify what the screening requirements are - but most good HITs will at least do that much. (The second biggest draw is that the vast majority of surveys there are nonprofessional, research-oriented surveys, which on one hand, might be way less polished, but on the other hand, are usually far more interesting than the 77th giant "which adjectives describe which stores" table of the day. ) Since I discovered the awesomeness of mturk (when done right), I've... kinda stopped taking as many other surveys from other survey sites, cause this is my beer money hobby, not my day job, and mturk beats the pants off other sites, so I always go there first. I've cashed out on mturk (i.e. had 10+ dollars) roughly every 2-3 days for the past couple months, with almost no effort. Mturk is awesome (again: if and only if you know what you're doing.)

Cash is my favorite too! Though I find it annoying that PayPal charges me when I transfer money from my PayPal account to my bank account.

I take cash whenever I can to put towards bills and groceries. I only take gift cards and vouchers if there is no cash options

By far I value CASH! Of ANY amount. Pine Cone is my current favorite survey company because they offer a $3 rewards cash option for each completed survey. I am a low-income retired person and I need all the help I can get. I live in a tiny studio apt. and have too much junk as it is so definitely do not want "stuff" as rewards -- especially the junk offered on most survey companies these days. I cannot use things like this. Things I might really need, like a new blender or new vacuum cleaner, would take years to redeem, and besides I am very picky about a new appliance when I ever am able to get one. I don't want something cheap that will break down quickly. Cash or Amazon cards are the best. However, with the postage and handling and now the tax, I am obliged to wait until I have a larger amount from Amazon than before, as the tax and postage will just eat most of it up. Another thing useful would be a general credit card that one can use in ANY store. I am also particular about where I grocery shop (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's) so that I cannot use, say, a Dunkin' Donuts card or one from a regular non-natural foods supermarket that might not be convenient to me anyway. Let people choose what they really *need* from a gift card -- that is, one that is accepted nearly everywhere and that one can get what is valuable to *them* -- and not some "giftie" or fast food restaurant card. I just quit another survey company because I felt I was wasting my time as no matter how many "points" I might have won from them, they do NOT offer cash or gift cards that are general enough so that they would be valuable to me. I don't qualify for a lot of surveys anyway because I live more of an alternative lifestyle than a lot of people do -- no TV, no car, shop only at health food stores -- so the companies that send out surveys are not looking for people like me most of the time. Cash or gift cards makes it worth my while when I *am* able to get through a survey without feeling I'm wasting so much of my time.

I value rewards that have the option of choosing to apply a gift card into my Amazon account or having a cash payment into my Paypal account.