University Of Washington Students Will Apparently Do Anything For A Quick Buck

Swoop Johnson8 years ago

It appears the more traditional routes of making money while in college, like selling “Adderall” that’s really just Smarties and/or getting naked in front of your Macbook, are becoming obsolete at the University of Washington.

Nomad, a startup in Bellevue, WA, is paying UW students to walk around campus with iPads attached to their bodies that display digital advertisements. The idea is for students to be hitting high-traffic areas while they’re out and about, getting advertisers as much exposure as possible. And there’s no “I’ll just say I did it then make them pay me” here; the company is apparently on some big brother-type shit with the technology they’ve created to track their UW student-workers, as pointed out by 23-year-old Nomad founder Jonah Friedl.

From KIRO 7:

”This shows density of exposure — where they’re getting the most impressions,” he told us, showing us a map of the University of Washington campus on his computer, with areas highlighted like weather radar.

Sometimes impressions mean handing out a coupon card with a code, seeing how many are redeemed — “and then correlate sales or app downloads and attribute that to Nomad…”

Walk around, get as many “impressions” as possible, hand out some coupons, get watched like you’re a toddler, and get paid? Nomad workers’ day-to-day sounds like what capitalism is going to look like once incumbent Cybertarian candidate Amazon Prime is elected to another presidency in 2028.

One student, mentioned in the same article, makes $15 by walking to class everyday. That’s $75 per week — or almost $4,000 per year — just for wandering around like an idiot with an iPad hanging off his backpack. This is how people get ahead in life? This is “working smarter?” Fuck it, I’m dropping out and becoming a ditch-digger..

[via KIRO 7]

Image via KIRO 7