They're working for free and providing a valuable service to others on the road. They are Waze volunteers who help keep the information available on Waze current.
My first exposure to Waze was as a passenger in a vehicle with a built in GPS which was connected to the driver's voice controlled Waze app. And it made quite an impression.
So this recent article really got my attention: ‘It Takes Over Your Life’: Waze Volunteers Work for the Love of Maps (Alternate link here):
But for much of its information, the company relies on Mr. Richey and about 30,000 other volunteers who devote nights, weekends and the occasional odd hours to fine-tuning its maps by adding streets and businesses, updating road closures and responding to user requests for map updates and fixes. In an era of the gig economy, Waze has found a better business model—unpaid labor.
Unpaid? Well, there's this:
The volunteers—whom the company calls “editors”—accrue points for each map update, rising through the ranks and earning new avatars as they gain the ability to edit wider areas and more important roads. There are six levels of editors and people can also earn additional titles, showing they oversee a specific region.
So they've got that going for them.
Meanwhile, system certainly seems like a significant upgrade from the type of built-in GPS my old car has -- which would cost a couple of hundred dollar just for a map update.
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4:02 PM 3/29/2019
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