Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 184 posts

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#101

Post by diceduckmonk »

rcarmo wrote: post #91

The article is way overblown and borderline clueless. First off, the Luddites demonstrating before the Web Summit had a political backing, they’re not a grassroots movement. That demonstration happened for the cameras (and to further a small party’s ambitions to the limelight). Second, there is indeed backlash against the golden visa program, but the most meaningful bits are due to visas being granted to people who d…

Thanks for the super insightful post. Could you expand on what brokerage means in this context.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#102

Post by unity1001 »

AYBABTME wrote: post #41
user_named wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy. It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

Agreed. Expats don't remember the bureaucracy they had to deal with in their own countries, because they did it: - over the years - step by step - with the help of their parents or simply their parents took care of most things when they were young/born/growing up. Then they arrive in a new country and realize what it's like to administratively become a functional resident. You probably got your first bank account in…

This is likely the best comment in this thread.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#103

Post by sofixa »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #71
stanislavb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's not exactly always true. I've had zero problems with bureaucracy since moving to Australia. My case has been that everything just works - minimal human involvement, and when it's present - it's pretty optimized. I think that due to the high cost of labour (highest minimal pay in the world) and lack of labour due to higher speed of development - whatever that can be automated has been automated.

Same experience in NZ - you only start to see how hopeless europe is when you come back. I had 0 interaction with gov clark in nearly a decade in NZ, while in europe any sort of errand would require in face meetings. Even some digital forms would just email the form to a person in ivory tower for validation, who’ll tell you to visit office anyway…

"Europe".

Counterpoint, in France the vast majority of bureacratic things can be done fully online. Last time i had to go in person was for a passport/ID card, so there are multiple good reasons (photo, biometric info, confirm your identity) for that. Some of the websites are not great, and sometimes they send you a confirmations by mail, but otherwise a pretty painless experience.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#104

Post by rvieira »

lildata wrote: post #24

Young Portuguese have been emigrating for the last 50 years. The country is full of second residences, bought by people who took advantage of cheap real estate until recently. Blaming today's inflation and cost of living on a few digital nomads or crypto people doesn't make much sense. What also chocked me when visiting Lisbon or Porto is the number of old abandoned buildings in what I would consider nice areas. I ha…

(I've lived in Portugal more than 20 years ago and things (i.e. laws) might have changed significantly.) The problems with abandoned, degraded but historical/beautiful buildings had to do with several factors.

One factor was the social protection that renters (especially elderly) are afforded by law, especially keeping rents very (and I mean very low). This protection is in itself a good thing, but the downside was that landlords had no incentive to do renovations in the order of million euros for a building full of renters paying fifty euros per month each (I can't recall exact quantities). As I said, the protection of elderly is a good thing, but a balance was never achieved.

Another factor (and this ties with the bureaucracy theme) was that for some buildings, the state and municipality couldn't even locate the owner. So you might have this grade I building with a name as the legal owner, but it could be someone that emigrated to Brazil 50 years ago. Couple that with the slowness of judicial process and the building is in a limbo state for a century.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#105

Post by user_named »

louison11 wrote: post #78
user_named wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy. It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

No, Portugal is different. To give you perspective: it takes 2-3 years to exchange a foreign driver license (most foreigners I know drive illegally by now), a lot of administrations frequently “lose” applications and ask you to do it again when they have too much backlog (this cost me hundreds of dollars in back and forth, certified documents etc in the past). It’s also very common for administrations to have no one…

Takes 18 months to get permission for your foreign spouse to move to Sweden. It then takes 12-18 months to get into the social system - you register quickly, but for the bureaucracy to actually add you into the system takes that long. So no, you're wrong. Portugal is not different.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#106

Post by sofixa »

ls15 wrote: post #86
user_named wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy. It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

What's wrong with complaining about sprawling bureaucracy? I can only see downsides and no upsides. Don't you want it to be eliminated? I think people are not yet complaining enough.

Unless you can complain with actionable complaints (It'd be great if i could fill this form on a website instead of on paper and mailing/faxing it), it literally serves no purpose.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#107

Post by user_named »

hknmtt wrote: post #81
fy20 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about Portugal, but a few years ago my wife was studying in Spain on a study abroad program. She is from another EU country, and we'd visited Spain a few times, so figured it would be easy. Pretty much every step of the way we encountered so much more bureaucracy (I am an immigrant to her country) than we could even imagine. She spoke Spanish, but if she didn't it would have been a million times harder.…

When i was was apartment hunting in barcelona 7+ years ago and failed straight for weeks to get a single reply on idealista, and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona, i quit the country. good to visit, not to live. ps: when i wanted a bank account, the people there acted like they didn't spoke english, until it was clear they won't give me an account, then suddenly english…

Why didn't you learn Spanish?

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#108

Post by nachomg »

hknmtt wrote: post #81
fy20 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about Portugal, but a few years ago my wife was studying in Spain on a study abroad program. She is from another EU country, and we'd visited Spain a few times, so figured it would be easy. Pretty much every step of the way we encountered so much more bureaucracy (I am an immigrant to her country) than we could even imagine. She spoke Spanish, but if she didn't it would have been a million times harder.…

When i was was apartment hunting in barcelona 7+ years ago and failed straight for weeks to get a single reply on idealista, and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona, i quit the country. good to visit, not to live. ps: when i wanted a bank account, the people there acted like they didn't spoke english, until it was clear they won't give me an account, then suddenly english…

No, they don't have "siestas". In Spain usually all retail closes from 2pm to 5pm. I wouldn't expect to go to a UK venue and have a normal dining timetables (for me as Spaniard), because I understand things work different there.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#109

Post by blakblakarak »

user_named wrote: post #31
alzamos wrote: post #16

Currently living in the Algarve after moving to Lisbon with my partner for her studies years ago. I know a few non-crypto entrepreneurs who came here for the NHR (non habitual resident scheme - the scheme mentioned in the article which allowed for the 20% tax cap on foreign income). I can confirm that a lot of them were incredibly frustrated with the bureaucracy they encountered, not just when dealing with the govern…

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy. It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

I'm an English immgrant in France - lots of my compatriots complain about French bureaucracy but in all honesty it's far more efficient and accessible than it is in the UK.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#110

Post by michaelteter »

It’s ridiculous to blame digital nomads. If there is a primary source to blame, it would be Airbnb.

This gentrification and tourist problem began well before Lisbon became a DN favorite.

Also it’s a global problem as wealth accumulation means individuals and companies can’t find enough places to “safely” put cash. Real estate, especially when it can generate good income, is an obvious choice.

Plus, Portugal attracts wealthy Brazilians who want a comfortable, safe, and European home.

Post reply on HN