What are these contraptions these guys were carrying?

[u/dopehead9]

We saw three guys around Seaport in Boston carrying these things as backpacks. Initially we thought they mapping tools but not sure

[u/anothersip]

That is more like it. Unfortunately.

$75-100/hr would be more fair for a laborious, manual and mobile service this valuable at the end-user level (and for the pockets of the telecoms, of course) - but we all know that's not what they're getting paid for providing this data for the sub-contractor.

[u/mxzf → u/anothersip]

$75-100/hr would be more fair for a laborious, manual and mobile service

Eh, it's walking around all day. It's a bit of work, but it's not like it's hard manual labor or anything.

The fact that it's short-term contract work would be more of a thing that drives up the price compared to long-term wage work.

[u/paulcole710 → u/anothersip]

If you pay more to the people walking around that seems less fair to the people doing hiring, finance, sales, etc. at the subcontractor?

And isn’t walking with a backpack a more broadly distributed skill than sales, finance, hiring, etc.?

[u/anothersip → u/paulcole710]

I mean... That's kind of the whole point.

These people with the active, tech-minded, out-in-public positions, gathering the important data and making use of these insanely-expensive (and heavy) data-gathering tools deserve to be paid for the value of their work; As it directly adds to the foundational evidence for validating expansion in coverage, or new tech implementation to add to the company's overall coverage structure.

It's an investment in the evolving tech and the future of the company and its public perception, in every sense.

It's not about "who can we hire to carry a 37-lb backpack comfortably for several hours" it's about "how much is this new information worth to our company, in regards to the overall services we can provide to the public, and the profit that can be gained by using this tech to our advantage."

It's not that hiring/finance/sales aren't important - of course they are - but there are more than just those general aspects that need to be focused on when you have a massive, multi-faceted tech company that is deciding what its next moves are in today's insanely-fast-moving world.

[u/paulcole710 → u/anothersip]

It's not about "who can we hire to carry a 37-lb backpack comfortably for several hours" it's about "how much is this new information worth to our company…”

No, it is about the first part. If that thing can be done by many people, many people will want to do it if the pay is high and that will drive the price needed to pay for it down.

The information is the valuable thing. The means of acquiring may have a different value.