Treading a thin line between totally unethical/wrong and gainful temporary employment, companies at SXSW Music Festival are hiring homeless people to act as WiFi hotspots. Here's how it works:
If you’re a SXSW attendee and want access, all you have to do is make a donation of your choosing to the homeless hotspot you wish to “use” and you’ll receive unlimited access, suggested donation $2 per 15 minutes. When all is said and done, each “Hotspot Manager,” as they are called, gets to keep all the donations made in order to gain access to his particular hotspot.
And here's what people are saying about this marketing scheme/temp job:
While having roaming hotspots may be very useful for SXSW attendees who want better access to network connectivity considering that Wi-Fi is lacking, the concept of taking the homeless and “turning them into” infrastructure has some implications that don’t go over well with everyone. “The shirt doesn’t say, ‘I have a 4G hotspot.’ It says, ‘I am a 4G hotspot,’” Jon Mitchell of Read Write Web points out.
Front Steps, based in Austin and responsible for finding the Hotspot Managers, all of whom were selected after a fairly detailed application process, says that the project fits with the organization’s goals of ”empowerment, education, and encouragement of the client to earn an income while saving the majority of those earnings with a goal of moving to safe and stable housing.”
Personally, I don't agree with treating homeless people like objects rather than human beings, but I like that they get to interact with the public and make some money at the same time. But what do you think-is this gainful employment, or a way to exploit the homeless?
Link
Is a road crew flagman being exploited because he is just standing there holding a sign? No.
Did the homeless voluntarily don the shirt and carry the hotspot? Yes. Don't tell them what they can't do with their bodies unless it will harm themselves or others.
The "I am a hotspot" shirt was not meant to be taken literally. The fact that I have to point that out is very sad.
- Austin Homeless dying off from rare form of Cancer.
- New 6G Hotspots. Find a ClarenceX22 near you.
Similar to the homeless newpapers that are sold with content generated and published by homeless except this is actually something you want instead of a pity purchase.
Anyway, I'd prefer meeting Roxy with her 4 g hot spots ;p
No it doesn't...going by the t-shirt in the pic it says "I'm Clarence, a 4G hotspot". Even giving the guy's name. If people diss it at least get the facts right. Cant see anything wrong with it, so long as they get paid. I mean they pay mascots to stand outside shops etc...
Something not mentioned here is that in addition to being able to keep the donations they also receive $20 up front and a minimum of $50 a day for about six hours work. so if they get $2 for every 15 minutes in donations and $50 for six hours that works out to over $16/hr and I bet a lot of them will do much better.
I've done much worse jobs in my youth (slaughter house work) and for a lot less money.
How this is a job? They are getting paid to absolutely nothing. A flag pole could serve the same purpose.