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Is remote work bad for the economy?

fractional.work

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#341

Post by JohnFen »

jrumbut wrote: post #112
michaelteter wrote: post #74

This applies everywhere: just because a job or business has existed does not mean it has a right to exist forever. This is not being harsh on people; it's just a reality. The blacksmiths in the horse and buggy days saw demand for their services fall when time and technologies changed. The coal miners began losing their jobs when we realized that coal as fuel was more harmful than it was beneficial. History is full of…

This is probably true to an extent, but I do think this analysis fails to capture the very real upheaval that happened in the life of a hypothetical blacksmith or wainwright that ended up at a car factory. A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. There is a career progression that they had planned on, they made choices about where to live and all kinds of other t…

> It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet.

For some, sure. But certainly not for everybody.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#342

Post by rubyfan »

edude03 wrote: post #281
rubyfan wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument I hear mostly from the ‘remote work is bad’ crowd is that there is highly valuable intangible benefit to collaboration in real life than collaboration remotely. I can get behind the idea that remote work is not as effective especially when forming a new team or assimilating new team members. However the thing that the ‘remote work is bad’ crowd get wrong is the distribution of collaborative work and deep…

It heavily depends on what kind of work you do and your relation to others though - if most of your work is deep work done by yourself of course less time interesting with others makes sense but if you're a team lead for example...

I’d agree that someone in a lead role must have more collaborative time but I think IRL collaborative time needed is still significantly less than imagined by the ‘remote work is bad’ crowd.

In my opinion IRL is more needed for negotiation, handling uncertainty, new team formation, business development, etc.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#343

Post by sangnoir »

antihipocrat wrote: post #129
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

Exactly, the local suburban businesses are loving the extra foot traffic, at the expense of less foot traffic in downtown areas. I'm sure home delivery services are benefiting too. The suggestion that the general economy is suffering because of people WFH doesn't make much sense, spending is just reallocated. .. Now if people were saving any money previously spent on commuting and eating out, then that would reduce G…

My dream is that all the anti-residential, pro-corporate-offices cities get a wake-up call and improve on their housing supply.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#344

Post by Laaas »

shagie wrote: post #324
Laaas wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the government helped people switch jobs after they're made redundant?

They do, and try to... just most people don't take advantage of that. Look up the equivalent of the Department of Workforce Development for your state and find the employment and training section. For example: https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/det/ and https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dislocatedworker/

Thanks, I wasn't aware of this, but in hindsight it neems obvious.

I think it's very unfortunate though that we have an economy where redundant pieces attempt not to disappear even if society is worse off. If people replaced by X technology could be assured that their QoL would not drop noticeably after being made redundant, we could likely forgo much unnecessary conflict between the worker class and upper class. Maybe it's impossible to do it while making sure the dislocated workers can be productive elsewhere, as I imagine many might not want nor be able to go through education again.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#345

Post by eyelidlessness »

chii wrote: post #180
eyelidlessness wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really just a reconfiguration of the same underlying problem. The workers have to get a job, because they arbitrarily have to make some profits to benefit someone else who is just taking advantage of the market shift and their leverage to do so. That’s an economy which is good for a few people with access to capital, but bad for everyone else. An economy which prioritized taking care of the people who are out…

> That’s really just a reconfiguration of the same underlying problem. so your problem is the human condition? Where for someone to exist, they have to work and produce something from which others in society would pay for?

My problem is this being framed as the human condition, as if some people doing labor for others to survive is some immutable fact from on high.

It’s a relatively new phenomenon, part of an economic system created by people who reap outsized benefits compared to their own labor. It’s also a system which has promised efficiencies which would reduce work, which it’s delivered but very unevenly and mostly inversely proportional to the people actually doing the work.

We already live in a post scarcity society for some, but the people who get to enjoy that are generally not the people who make it possible. My problem is that the people who make that possible don’t get to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and people who are actually disabled are totally at their mercy. All because we’ve collectively decided capitalism is some kind of unquestionable, perpetual compromise which never has had to make good on promises to anyone who wasn’t already wealthy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#346

Post by tempestn »

matwood wrote: post #215
tempestn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you included that last line. I agree with you that managing a remote team or running a remote business has challenges that an in-person one doesn't. (I've been running AutoTempest with an all-remote team for almost 14 years now.) Managers who rely on the 'butts in seats' heuristic will struggle a lot with managing remote employees. However, the opportunities are also massive. For one thing, the owners/manage…

You're spot on. One big ones you missed is the cost savings of not needing an office. Years before covid, I pushed my company out of an office to full remote for many of the reasons you listed. It allowed us to keep a few great employees who wanted to live elsewhere, and save substantial money on office space (which matters a lot for a small company). At the time Slack had just become big and we embraced the async, t…

Good point. We've always been all remote, so I forget about that one, but I'm sure it's significant! When I started it was just me, and then just me and a friend of mine, so obviously didn't make sense to get an office just for us. Then we hired a third person, but again it was easy enough to make it work. For a long time I assumed that at some point I'd eventually have to get serious and get a real office. But then one day I realized... no one was going to make me do that.

It's certainly been a continuous process learning how to effectively manage a remote team (and manage in general), but agreed that at least for us the advantages definitely outweigh the drawbacks. It's actually been nice as remote work has caught on elsewhere, because though it means more competition, it also means much better tools as well as a broader knowledge base to draw on.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#347

Post by chii »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #345
chii wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s really just a reconfiguration of the same underlying problem. so your problem is the human condition? Where for someone to exist, they have to work and produce something from which others in society would pay for?

My problem is this being framed as the human condition, as if some people doing labor for others to survive is some immutable fact from on high. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, part of an economic system created by people who reap outsized benefits compared to their own labor. It’s also a system which has promised efficiencies which would reduce work, which it’s delivered but very unevenly and mostly inversely prop…

> We already live in a post scarcity society for some

there's no "some" in post-scarcity - it's either for all, or we aren't in a post scarcity society.

> we’ve collectively decided capitalism is some kind of unquestionable

it's not unquestionable, but so far, no better system has been proposed that produces as much goods/services as capitalism has.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#348

Post by chii »

newswasboring wrote: post #232
chii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no taxes left to fund education which is why it's really a stupid policy decision to fund schooling via local taxation. There should be federally funded schools.

It is probably stupid, but I don't think that can ever change. The US political system is not set up to encourage nationalization, or even state based control, of anything. edit: It also rewards the wrong people. The schools which made someone capable of getting a high paying job does not get anything in return. In fact with people moving out they get less and less money to improve themselves. Even in the most indivi…

> The schools which made someone capable of getting a high paying job does not get anything in return.

as it should be - the school should not be able to capture the output of its students, while at the same time, getting "free" funding. If the school would capture some of the output of the students in the future (aka, the successful ones), then the school would need to invest in the students via equity (aka, pay the students while they're being taught!).

The school _could_ get reputational reward for producing great students. That's about as far as a return a school can get.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#350

Post by eyelidlessness »

chii wrote: post #347
eyelidlessness wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem is this being framed as the human condition, as if some people doing labor for others to survive is some immutable fact from on high. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, part of an economic system created by people who reap outsized benefits compared to their own labor. It’s also a system which has promised efficiencies which would reduce work, which it’s delivered but very unevenly and mostly inversely prop…

> We already live in a post scarcity society for some there's no "some" in post-scarcity - it's either for all, or we aren't in a post scarcity society. > we’ve collectively decided capitalism is some kind of unquestionable it's not unquestionable, but so far, no better system has been proposed that produces as much goods/services as capitalism has.

> there's no "some" in post-scarcity - it's either for all, or we aren't in a post scarcity society.

No kidding, that’s why I want it to benefit more people who actually need to benefit from it.

> it's not unquestionable, but so far, no better system has been proposed that produces as much goods/services as capitalism has.

And it also produced artificial demand for labor and a claim that people working from home is bad if it doesn’t buttress this artificial demand or supplement it with some other demand. I don’t need to be a 19th century philosopher to know when something has run its course.

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