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Is remote work bad for the economy?

fractional.work

71–80 of 363 posts

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#71
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy people typically don’t spend as much money trying to drown their sorrows in consumer crap, food, and drugs.

No, but hungry people who don’t want to get dressed and leave the house will order a quick meal on Uber Eats at twice the cost of getting it in-person.

That's too lazy. No need to get dressed. You can drive to the closest point. You can collect both Lunch and Dinner. People who order Uber Eats at twice the cost are privileged (or maybe in a particular situation but these don't make the economy).

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#72

i’ve been working remotely for a decade and i’ve never been happier. i also suspect that the population being happier is no doubt bad for corporate profits.

There is also that pesky problem, particularly in North America, of the shopping district being far away from the housing. At the office, shopping may be no more than a block away. At home, you're in for a big hike (or more likely a car ride) to get to places to buy things. That extra hurdle means you won't take the time as frequently.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#73
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do cities and states attract well paid remote workers. To me WFH aligns the incentives exactly right in this case. You attract workers by being a good place to live. Have stuff human people care about -- parks, playgrounds, schools, restaurants, nightlife, recreation, arts, theater, music, food, yada yada. Instead of right now where the strat is to get a critical mass of well-ish-paying businesses and then ever…

You do see the irony that jobs at places like restaurants and theaters cannot be done remotely, right?

There is an "infinite" amount of people that need a job and can't do something remotely (because they are not too "techyy" for that). Right now, they have to 1.5H commute from Jersey to Manhattan because that's where the job is. They are not originally from NJ but that's where they found the cheapest rent.

I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to serve the Digital Nomads or the Remote worker that picked small town, out of no where.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#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 valid jobs which later became unneeded or "invalid".

Remote work can increase efficiency by eliminating artificial inefficiencies. Not having to drive to work reduces fuel consumption and lengthens the time between car repairs or replacement. This obviously is a financial loss for the economy because it shifts the balance back from money to time. The same goes for office space: less office space need reduces demand which reduces rents (and amount of space leased). However, that cost can be offset some as home working can increase demand for larger homes. Even so, a slightly larger home is still probably less cost than a commercial space which goes unused for 12+ hours per day.

It smells like much of this anti-remote-work conversation (not TFA, but the topic in general) is because the people accustomed to being in charge have a fear of losing control. The manager who rules by force or threat has much to fear of subordinates who are out of sight. However, the manager (leader) who works together with a group of people toward a common goal has little to fear. Some companies operate very successfully even when management cannot observe the workers. The alarms and complaints we hear are almost certainly from the bad group. Eventually that group will be like the dinosaurs.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#75
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do cities and states attract well paid remote workers. To me WFH aligns the incentives exactly right in this case. You attract workers by being a good place to live. Have stuff human people care about -- parks, playgrounds, schools, restaurants, nightlife, recreation, arts, theater, music, food, yada yada. Instead of right now where the strat is to get a critical mass of well-ish-paying businesses and then ever…

You do see the irony that jobs at places like restaurants and theaters cannot be done remotely, right?

As an aside, it is quite curious that we choose to say jobs at places like restaurants and theatres cannot be done remotely. Those are the kinds of jobs that are remote (faraway, distant)!

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#77
post #25

Bad for which economy? Countless programmers over the years have packed up their bags and moved away from their small towns to live in big expensive tech hubs. This has certainly been beneficial for the economy of large metros--they didn't pay to educate these workers and in many cases these workers (including myself) were raised and educated in completely different countries. So these metros have a huge pool of high…

Heh. Well, methinks your idea and mine as to what constitutes a small town are somewhat different. The small town (pop.~1500 at the time) canceled pre-calc my senior year; the district contacted, individually, the 3 of us that had enrolled. Something about being the only person who had enrolled, so they couldn't justify a regularly scheduled class. I guess they might have thought that nerds didn't talk to each other.…

>would kill such a a program in the crib.

Did I miss something in the comment you're replying to or do I need to read the article?

1500 is a small town for sure. I'd consider 12k to be a small town as well. 1500 is way bigger than the town my dad is from. There's about 100 people there now. Your small town is huge compared to that. He sometimes talks about being on the highschool football team at the school shared by a collection of towns in the county. He says they did pretty damn good in the first half, but by the second they were all so worn out that they'd just get steamrolled. They only had enough players to cover the field you see. The guys all played both offense and defense.

I imagine even a couple folks moving back there and working remotely would be a huge boon for the town. Heck, it'd make a big difference in the county, what with the biggest town only being around 3k people. It's very pretty there, but it's over an hour to the nearest city that has any kind of employment opportunities. If you can't make finances work on the pay from the gas station, your options are move out of town or move out of town. The internet is decent there and being able to work remotely would be the difference between being able to survive in that town or having to move away to find decent-paying work.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending money at restaurants is great, way better than everybody sitting at home eating their own lunches. I suspect massive adoption of restaurants would be more efficient too, if we cared about that primarily. Inner city areas full of people chatting in restaurants and cafes at lunchtime and after work are the best. > Then you get these articles about how unhealthy life is in the city. You know; mobile phone tumou…

Whose economy are we talking about though? I mean I understand what you're saying but most people I know still prefer eating at home most of the time and going to restaurants occasionally, mainly because meals out cost 3-10x as much as eating at home, unless you start every meal from scratch. this is really important for families.

> mainly because meals out cost 3-10x as much as eating at home

If you are at a place that sells an experience that happens to come with food that may be true, but one in the business of selling food is going to beat your home kitchen every time.

The big difference is that the home kitchen costs are largely front-loaded. This does mean you generally need less free cashflow when you are hungry, which is an appealing attribute to someone who budgets by looking at their bank account balance. However, it also means you sacrifice a fair amount of opportunity. That does not come cheap.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#79
There was another article in the Sydney Morning Herald [0] behooving everybody to get back to the CBD because...mental health...cafes will close...

What if you work in a tech park that has few or no amenities, or your work office is in a cruddy bit of town you really dislike? When the house is tidy and the washing done in the 10 minutes an hour I can wander away from the work laptop, I feel a lot happier than worrying about trying to get it done on the weekends or the evenings.

I'd rather quit and find some other job. I'm tired of articles telling me that something I hated to do was somehow a sacrifice I have to make for made up reasons that really don't add up to a hill of beans.

[0]https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-it-s-time-to-get-...

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#80

There was another article in the Sydney Morning Herald [0] behooving everybody to get back to the CBD because...mental health...cafes will close... What if you work in a tech park that has few or no amenities, or your work office is in a cruddy bit of town you really dislike? When the house is tidy and the washing done in the 10 minutes an hour I can wander away from the work laptop, I feel a lot happier than worryin…

I find it odd that for decades, people were shamed for wasting money at cafes ...but then as soon as people stopped going to cafes, it's suddenly an economic disaster?
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