The South by Southwest geekfest conference in Austin this month has produced a lot of chatter, but nothing produced an uproar quite like the Homeless Hotspots.

The experiment by BBH Labs had homeless people carry special equipment and wear T-shirts describing themselves as 4G hot spots, so that conference-goers — in return for donations — could get Internet connections on the go. The initiative was immediately dubbed “exploitive,” “dystopian” and “unselfconscious gall” by tech bloggers and social media users. BBH said that although it felt villainized, the criticism was positive for the homeless because “these people are no longer invisible.”. . .