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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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701–710 of 736 posts

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big cities are by nature cosmopolitan, it’s very strange to say only some people “belong” and others don’t. Would you prefer the world isolate into pockets of belonging based on generational inheritance as it has been and we crank back globalization? Certainly there are growing pains, but I would view more globalization as the direction we want to go.

> Big cities are by nature cosmopolitan but most rich tech workers, especially from US, especially from SV, are not. It's time to accept it. We don't want them. Not at this rate, not at these (their) conditions. They only bring problems. One thing is immigrants coming to work, another thing entirely is people that go somewhere because "it's cheap" or "it's beautiful" but work and pay taxes elsewhere. They also have t…

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Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#702
post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask someone from NYC if they are happy with the Italianization of their city...

I don't believe NY is being "italianized", Italians have been there for so long that the idea if Italians in NY it's almost a meme nowadays, even in Italy we mock them. Anyway, it's not about where people come from, but how. Italians didn't go to NY through Airbnb, profiting of their much higher salaries. They went there to work and lived at "the bottom of the ladder" level (my grand-grand father is one of them, he l…

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Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumption as a fraction may be smaller but as a number it's much larger. Wealthy people own larger homes (often more than one), more and more expensive cars, boats, private aircraft, any number of other toys. They spend more on clothes, entertainment, virtually every other category of spending is higher if you are wealthy. Maybe they spend about the same amount on toilet paper.

> Consumption as a fraction may be smaller but as a number it's much larger. The current status is one with progressive tax rates where people with higher incomes pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. This is still not enough due to loopholes, etc. The person I replied to complains about "ruling class" and proposes (presumably as a way to mitigate the ruling class' accumulation of wealth) tax on consumpti…

That’s assuming you charge consumption taxes equally. If you exempt basic items it evens up far more.

I don’t pay consumption taxes in the U.K. on food, rent or public transport, that’s the majority of expenses.

My neighbour does pay them on eating out at a restaurant, a kitchen refurbishment, and a new mercedes

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I propose people start reconsidering this imposed situation that exists between the people who do the work and the government, i.e. the parasitic ruling class. And to clarify, I say that as someone who is not at all “leftist” oriented, even though it may seem so at first glance of reading that to some. This situation we currently essentially globally have, at least in the west, is quite an abusive system that is real…

I get the analogy many others here intentionally miss. Usurping the value of your labor by force. Most of us in America work >4 months a year with all that value stolen by the parasite class. How many months will we accept until, instead of theft, we call it slavery?

Those taxes pay for societies various needs, schools, roads, defence

You can go live in a society with few taxes if you want, look at moving to the Bahamas for example. Have fun.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I am connected to my work via a VPN, I am technically still working in the country of employment. I hope this is sarcasm. A VPN is a technical detail that would never stand up, legally. The only situation where I can see a VPN being useful is within your own company: if they don't want you working remotely a VPN might help cover up the fact that you are. But aside from that it won't help you.

Law is all technical details and abstractions though. Where are you working if you are flying above various states and countries while VPNd?

There are international conventions and it could be the country you are going to, flying over, or where the plane is registered. Or a mix of all 3.

A better analogy would be if you worked remotely from a boat on the high seas on your own boat.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended read, by the way. A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate gr…

First world -- NATO member states Second world -- Warsaw Pact member states Third world -- all other states

Which would make Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Japan etc third world.

That’s not how the term is used.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an immigration/tax lawyer and could be completely wrong but if you're from EU/US/UK/AUS etc I'm fairly sure you can work in another one of those countries for up to 90 days (and sometimes upto 183) without paying tax there or getting a work visa - as long as you're still resident and being paid in your home country under the Visa Waiver program. I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while…

> I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK ( If you're doing ordinary work I think that violates the terms of the B-1/B-2 visa - even if under 90 days.

Like most law it’s vague and subject to whims, there’s no flow chart to give you a definite answer.

If you go to meet team members in your NY office, interview some new staff, and look for a new building to move the office to, that’s all fine.

If you happen to do some unrelated sysadmin work on your servers in london while you’re there, that’s probably fine too, as your primary reason to visit is quite clearly fine.

If you went for a holiday for 2 weeks(on a B2 or esta) and happened to answer a phone call from work that’s fine.

If you went on holiday for 2 weeks and spent 10 days working remotely that’s probably not fine. If you went on a family holiday for 4 weeks but did a few days work remotely that’s might be ok. If you did it several times a year though it probably wouldn’t be.

There’s no hard and fast rule in law, and doubly so in immigration where the power to allow you in sits with the guy at the airport.

https://legalservicesincorporated.com/immigration/what-activ... has a good overview.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#708
post #697
post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries have many exceptions. A UK “tourist visa” is called a “Standard Visitor visa.” https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Remote working Visitors are permitted to undertake activities relating to their employment overseas remotely whilst they are in the UK, such as responding to emails or answering phone calls. However, you should check that the applicant’s main purpose of coming t…

"the applicant’s main purpose of coming to the UK is to undertake a permitted activity, rather than specifically to work remotely from the UK" That's doesn't seem like an exception? That sounds like saying "hey, I'm going to fly to the UK and work remotely from there" is against the law. What that paragraph says to me is "If someone comes to the UK as a visitor, and happens to do some work - responding to email and/o…

I believe this is the case in many countries; you can do some work like signing contracts and indeed answering emails and the phone for work purposes, but you cannot just take out the ol' laptop and write code for 90 days. Many people do because you cannot really check but it's not allowed, at least not in places I have been. Especially if you keep travelling (so 2-3 months here, 2-3 months there) then there is very little point in doing all this trouble unless you cannot stand technically doing something illegal although no-one will find out.

Anecdotal example; when I was young and naive (well, more naive than now), I went to Canada (Vancouver) to help some guys out with some software. I read up on it a bit, but not enough (naive!) so at the border I told that I was going to do a bit of sight seeing and a bit of 'work'. Wrong word; was immediately taken apart and spent 1 hour explaining that no, no not work, just a bit of light consultancy; no programming, no actual managing people etc and no money changing hands (this was all true, I just shouldn't have used the word 'work'). They let me enter and there were no further issues, but I guess most people would just say 'vacation!' even though this was allowed; it can/does add stress and you might be unlucky and be sent back.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#710

>Most companies don’t do this because of the mountain of complexities with taxes, payroll, and time zone availability, but I hope we can open-source a solution so other companies can offer this flexibility as well. I think this is a genius growth play for Airbnb. Make it easier for _other_ companies to operate in a similar way so that _their_ employees can travel and live in an... Airbnb! Next, they should lobby to g…

And i hope one day, we stop living in cities and only go there for culture, cinema, parties etc.

I think this would help with keeping rent down! /s

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