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The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. I think that a lot of people banging on about remote wor

The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. I think that a lot of people banging on about remote work just haven't tried it for an extended period. It works for some, and for those - great. To me, it's just another step down the 'technification' of everything in which people don't speak to the people around them (because they've been 'removed' from their lives) but spend all of their time in front of screens. I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my interests. That's something that's easy to do in a city. That's how businesses end up centering in hubs anyway. Who wants to be a startup founder living in the country alone? I'm sure this person exists, but they're the exception not the rule. I mean, right now, you can look at a place like London and see hyperlocal clustering of wealth, one street will be the 'nice street' and the next one rough. People really care about this. If you earned a London salary in my hometown you'd be ostracising yourself completely from those around you by virtue of just having none of the same concerns. Yeah, you own the home outright, you can buy a brand new car every 6 months, the price tags in the supermarket may as well be blank, etc. Oh yeah, and you have working hours whenever you want, booking a holiday is telling your boss "I won't be in Friday, guv". Wait until your neighbour tells you again how they're struggling to pay the bills or they've just been sanctioned by the benefits office. I don't see how that benefits anyone.

gurkendoktor 7y ago
> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. Unless you grew up in the area from which you work remotely, in which case you can be more social because connecting with old friends and family is much easier than making new friends at 30+. > If I earned a London salary in my hometown I'd be ostracising myself completely from those around me [...] I don't see how that benefits anyone. I don't see the problem with having more money than most of your neighbors - instead of buying new cars, you could spend it on your neighborhood and lift it up. Seems healthier than what is happening instead - non-techies being forced out of their homes because they can't keep up with techie rents.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent. Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather than having lived experience. As I think most people do. Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to find people to speak to who are on your level. Your specific example means you're making yourself some sort of local pariah/celebrity/whatever. It's very nice and kind, but what about your peer group? Do they just exist through a webcam? It's like the FIRE folks. Everyone thinks they want to retire at 30 unless they're in that situation, and then they realise it's deathly boring and everyone else is at work. (Sure, FU money is great). On reflection, I think maybe you're talking about the small arbs where like, you move from somewhere with 500K homes to somewhere with 250K homes or whatever; i.e. from somewhere with jobs, to somewhere with jobs (that pay a bit less). If you're doing the big arb of moving to an economically depressed area then you have to actually live there. The limiting example would be like those people that move to Vietnam or whatever and have servants. Maybe it works for them? But even if you're just moving to a poor area in the same country it's still a massive difference. There is a fundamental difference between having a bit more money and deleting worldly concerns. The FIRE/low CoL idea forgets the idea that if you make yourself 'special' you are now indeed special and weird and not like those around you.
  - abnry 7y ago
    "On your level" just screams pretentiousness. Since when is money the measure of a man anyways?
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    - bitforger 7y ago
      It's not really the money, it's the level of education and ambition. I worked remotely from Mount Pleasant, Michigan for a year and had a difficult time finding anyone to talk with about things that were interesting to me. The only group on Meetups.com was "Housewives of Mount Pleasant." Friends are peers that have similar life experiences and values (and humor). Sometimes people like that are hard to find.
humanrebar 7y ago
> I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my interests. You're clearly not a camper or a bow hunter, and you clearly have no particular attraction to pickup trucks. Point being, your generalization is actually pretty specific to your set of interests. Other folks couldn't imagine not owning a car, getting rid of their dogs, or having to plan a special trip to go fishing.
- deleted 7y ago
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- 0x445442 7y ago
  Very insightful. I grew up in upstate California and you've pretty well described my kin. I would love to leave the city and move some place similar but to do so would drastically limit my options of employment. The irony is I work in a satellite office where I'm one of 3 on a 20 person team whose located at the company's HQ. My job would be no different if I were physically located some place else.
sjg007 7y ago
You don’t have to be that remote.. you could work in another city or even in a cheaper suburb. With video conferencing I think some of the social parts are maintained.
- esotericn 7y ago
  In the UK that's not "that remote". There are 5x, 10x house price differentials for driving 3-4 hours up the road. Because no-one wants to live in a depressed town. You can live in a commuter town and not commute, sure, then you're not arbitraging CoL (it won't be much cheaper). If you live somewhere where there are no jobs then you have to deal with all of the issues I've stated.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    Get out into the country proper, and you'll find plenty of rich people to hang out with. They don't tend to live in villages or towns, and they don't socialise with "townies", and they certainly won't share any interests with some nouveau-rich tech worker who thinks they're wealthy
    - esotericn 7y ago
      Sure, but then you're not taking advantage of cost of living differences (first line of my post). You seem to have this idea that everyone here thinks they're uber wealthy or whatever. It's just relative to the locale. If you move to a depressed northern town with the idea that it's going to be some utopian bliss in your massive house then you are in for a shock. That's what is being discussed. Obviously there are nice places outside of metro areas. They have a price tag to match, or not, the land isn't for sale. You're also illustrating the other side of it - it's not easy to slot into a different social class (upwards or downwards).
      - marcus_holmes 7y ago
        I've lived all over the UK. I think Cardiff was the hardest to "slot into" - an English accent in Wales can prompt some interesting interactions ;) Though small-town England is also a nightmare of "if you didn't grow up here, fuck off". Social class in the UK is all about where you were educated, it has nothing to do with your income (same for Australia, but apparently not the USA, though I think that's changing). Your accent, your manners, whether you call it "dinner" or "tea", whether you go to the toilet, the lavatory or the bathroom. If you actually care about social class, these are the things that matter. Income doesn't. But attitude is the big one. You can fit in and make friends anywhere with an open attitude. People are people. Friendships can easily overcome class and income differences if there's mutual respect, empathy, and a desire to be friends.
scythe 7y ago
> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. [...] I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my interests. I don’t really prefer to make all of my friends within the tech/academic bubble that I work in. I would feel weird if I didn’t see my coworkers, but I’ve made a point of finding activities that bring me into contact with a range of different people, and I think that makes my social life more interesting. I was lucky enough to choose a career (medical physics) that takes place everywhere, but I could see remote work being effective for people in other fields.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I agree and feel the same, but there are limits somewhere. Prince Harry isn't seriously going to go down the pub for regular meet ups with his friends from the ex mining town. They might get on if they have a chat, but that's not the point. I'm specifically referring to the big CoL arbs, not the situation in which someone just lives like, further out from a major metro because they don't have to commute.
dx87 7y ago
That's been my experience as well. I've worked remote for a few years and love it because I'm fine without the social aspect of work, but most of the people I know left their remote job in under a year because it felt lonely and isolating. Anecdotally, it seems like married people and homeowners tend to like remote work because they have extra free time and a spouse to talk to, whereas the single people I know would quickly start doing their remote work at Starbucks or pubs with free WiFi because it's the only way they'll see another person during the work week.
- flatiron 7y ago
  As a married dude with three kids I love the fact I can drop them off at school and wait for the at the bus stop and do all the dad things most dads miss out on. It helps my company is 100% remote so our culture supports it. Honestly they could give me a pay cut come raise time and I would still stay.
grumple 7y ago
You can work remotely for competitive wages and live in a major city... which is what I do. So no sacrifice of social capital. More employers should embrace tools that let their workers work fully remote. It's started creeping in with more work from home days at most white-collar employers. But you'll have to start judging people by their productivity, not presence in the office. Video chat on demand is just as good (arguably more communication imo, as people no longer have to get up and walk to talk to you).
- esotericn 7y ago
  I agree. In my first sentence I'm specifically referring to the big cost of living arbs.
9c8675a8 7y ago
> I don't see how that benefits anyone. It benefits the local community because you and others who do the same will spend your money there. I can't believe this isn't obvious.
amiga_500 7y ago
> I don't see how that benefits anyone. It benefits parasitic rentiers.
ninkendo 7y ago
I think you’re using extremes to support your argument, but it falls apart when the “arbitrage” is even slightly less immense. I moved from the Bay Area where my 1300sqft rental house would have cost me $1.2M, to work remote from a high-income community in Michigan where my 5000sqft house cost me $700k. My neighbors are not poor, the schools are great, people are in a wide variety of professional and educational backgrounds (not just tech), and best of all, I live minutes away from my family and several of my best childhood friends, who I see every week. You don’t need to move to the middle of nowhere for remote work to be a good idea, just anywhere even slightly more sane than the Bay Area. There’s loads of places all over the country that can strike a good balance here.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Completely agree with you here. I think I should have been more clear in the original post as a whole bunch of commenters seem to be talking about situations in which you _could_ have got a local job, it'd just be a bit less well paid. I'm talking about working remotely to escape a locally depressed job market which is very different (because in that situation you are relatively unique).
clktmr 7y ago
So much wrong with this comment: Remote work doesn't mean home office. You can rent part of a shared office and still have colleagues for lunch. You don't need to move to a place where you will be 'the rich guy'. It's your choice. Even with your big tech salary you won't be better off than the local business owners in a place with around 20k inhabitants.
- esotericn 7y ago
  > Even with your big tech salary you won't be better off than the local business owners Exactly! But you're not a local business owner.
- pb7 7y ago
  How much do you local business owners profit on average?
  - clktmr 7y ago
    The average isn't relevant to my point. But in every town you'll find doctors, lawyers etc. who have a healthy social life despite their high income.
growlist 7y ago
> I don't see how that benefits anyone Putting London money into a poorer economy that really needs it, rather than back into London, which doesn't?
csomar 7y ago
You seem to have no friends/family or attachment to a particular social circle; which makes the physical connections with your co-workers valuable. If you have a very active social circle, you won't probably care that much about joining your co-workers for an after-work. The point of remote work is that you don't need to move to Silicon Valley to get a good job. And unless you are living in the middle of no-where, small communities still have very wealthy people who are probably wealthier than you'll ever become. Why didn't they move? Because they have roots there. Living in relatively poor/clean community is and co-working is still a good thing. You can then afford to have a family, something most people don't and you'll be able to buy more services. Then, you are helping the locals out there and reducing inequality.

gurkendoktor 7y ago

> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. Unless you grew up in the area from which you work remotely, in which case you can be more social because connecting with old friends and family is much easier than making new friends at 30+. > If I earned a London salary in my hometown I'd be ostracising myself completely from those around me [...] I don't see how that benefits anyone. I don't see the problem with having more money than most of your neighbors - instead of buying new cars, you could spend it on your neighborhood and lift it up. Seems healthier than what is happening instead - non-techies being forced out of their homes because they can't keep up with techie rents.

esotericn 7y ago
Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent. Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather than having lived experience. As I think most people do. Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to find people to speak to who are on your level. Your specific example means you're making yourself some sort of local pariah/celebrity/whatever. It's very nice and kind, but what about your peer group? Do they just exist through a webcam? It's like the FIRE folks. Everyone thinks they want to retire at 30 unless they're in that situation, and then they realise it's deathly boring and everyone else is at work. (Sure, FU money is great). On reflection, I think maybe you're talking about the small arbs where like, you move from somewhere with 500K homes to somewhere with 250K homes or whatever; i.e. from somewhere with jobs, to somewhere with jobs (that pay a bit less). If you're doing the big arb of moving to an economically depressed area then you have to actually live there. The limiting example would be like those people that move to Vietnam or whatever and have servants. Maybe it works for them? But even if you're just moving to a poor area in the same country it's still a massive difference. There is a fundamental difference between having a bit more money and deleting worldly concerns. The FIRE/low CoL idea forgets the idea that if you make yourself 'special' you are now indeed special and weird and not like those around you.
- abnry 7y ago
  "On your level" just screams pretentiousness. Since when is money the measure of a man anyways?
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - deleted 7y ago
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  - bitforger 7y ago
    It's not really the money, it's the level of education and ambition. I worked remotely from Mount Pleasant, Michigan for a year and had a difficult time finding anyone to talk with about things that were interesting to me. The only group on Meetups.com was "Housewives of Mount Pleasant." Friends are peers that have similar life experiences and values (and humor). Sometimes people like that are hard to find.

humanrebar 7y ago

> I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my interests. You're clearly not a camper or a bow hunter, and you clearly have no particular attraction to pickup trucks. Point being, your generalization is actually pretty specific to your set of interests. Other folks couldn't imagine not owning a car, getting rid of their dogs, or having to plan a special trip to go fishing.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
0x445442 7y ago
Very insightful. I grew up in upstate California and you've pretty well described my kin. I would love to leave the city and move some place similar but to do so would drastically limit my options of employment. The irony is I work in a satellite office where I'm one of 3 on a 20 person team whose located at the company's HQ. My job would be no different if I were physically located some place else.

sjg007 7y ago

You don’t have to be that remote.. you could work in another city or even in a cheaper suburb. With video conferencing I think some of the social parts are maintained.

esotericn 7y ago
In the UK that's not "that remote". There are 5x, 10x house price differentials for driving 3-4 hours up the road. Because no-one wants to live in a depressed town. You can live in a commuter town and not commute, sure, then you're not arbitraging CoL (it won't be much cheaper). If you live somewhere where there are no jobs then you have to deal with all of the issues I've stated.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  Get out into the country proper, and you'll find plenty of rich people to hang out with. They don't tend to live in villages or towns, and they don't socialise with "townies", and they certainly won't share any interests with some nouveau-rich tech worker who thinks they're wealthy
  - esotericn 7y ago
    Sure, but then you're not taking advantage of cost of living differences (first line of my post). You seem to have this idea that everyone here thinks they're uber wealthy or whatever. It's just relative to the locale. If you move to a depressed northern town with the idea that it's going to be some utopian bliss in your massive house then you are in for a shock. That's what is being discussed. Obviously there are nice places outside of metro areas. They have a price tag to match, or not, the land isn't for sale. You're also illustrating the other side of it - it's not easy to slot into a different social class (upwards or downwards).
    - marcus_holmes 7y ago
      I've lived all over the UK. I think Cardiff was the hardest to "slot into" - an English accent in Wales can prompt some interesting interactions ;) Though small-town England is also a nightmare of "if you didn't grow up here, fuck off". Social class in the UK is all about where you were educated, it has nothing to do with your income (same for Australia, but apparently not the USA, though I think that's changing). Your accent, your manners, whether you call it "dinner" or "tea", whether you go to the toilet, the lavatory or the bathroom. If you actually care about social class, these are the things that matter. Income doesn't. But attitude is the big one. You can fit in and make friends anywhere with an open attitude. People are people. Friendships can easily overcome class and income differences if there's mutual respect, empathy, and a desire to be friends.

scythe 7y ago

> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. [...] I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my interests. I don’t really prefer to make all of my friends within the tech/academic bubble that I work in. I would feel weird if I didn’t see my coworkers, but I’ve made a point of finding activities that bring me into contact with a range of different people, and I think that makes my social life more interesting. I was lucky enough to choose a career (medical physics) that takes place everywhere, but I could see remote work being effective for people in other fields.

esotericn 7y ago
I agree and feel the same, but there are limits somewhere. Prince Harry isn't seriously going to go down the pub for regular meet ups with his friends from the ex mining town. They might get on if they have a chat, but that's not the point. I'm specifically referring to the big CoL arbs, not the situation in which someone just lives like, further out from a major metro because they don't have to commute.

dx87 7y ago

That's been my experience as well. I've worked remote for a few years and love it because I'm fine without the social aspect of work, but most of the people I know left their remote job in under a year because it felt lonely and isolating. Anecdotally, it seems like married people and homeowners tend to like remote work because they have extra free time and a spouse to talk to, whereas the single people I know would quickly start doing their remote work at Starbucks or pubs with free WiFi because it's the only way they'll see another person during the work week.

flatiron 7y ago
As a married dude with three kids I love the fact I can drop them off at school and wait for the at the bus stop and do all the dad things most dads miss out on. It helps my company is 100% remote so our culture supports it. Honestly they could give me a pay cut come raise time and I would still stay.

grumple 7y ago

You can work remotely for competitive wages and live in a major city... which is what I do. So no sacrifice of social capital. More employers should embrace tools that let their workers work fully remote. It's started creeping in with more work from home days at most white-collar employers. But you'll have to start judging people by their productivity, not presence in the office. Video chat on demand is just as good (arguably more communication imo, as people no longer have to get up and walk to talk to you).

esotericn 7y ago
I agree. In my first sentence I'm specifically referring to the big cost of living arbs.

9c8675a8 7y ago

> I don't see how that benefits anyone. It benefits the local community because you and others who do the same will spend your money there. I can't believe this isn't obvious.

amiga_500 7y ago

> I don't see how that benefits anyone. It benefits parasitic rentiers.

ninkendo 7y ago

I think you’re using extremes to support your argument, but it falls apart when the “arbitrage” is even slightly less immense. I moved from the Bay Area where my 1300sqft rental house would have cost me $1.2M, to work remote from a high-income community in Michigan where my 5000sqft house cost me $700k. My neighbors are not poor, the schools are great, people are in a wide variety of professional and educational backgrounds (not just tech), and best of all, I live minutes away from my family and several of my best childhood friends, who I see every week. You don’t need to move to the middle of nowhere for remote work to be a good idea, just anywhere even slightly more sane than the Bay Area. There’s loads of places all over the country that can strike a good balance here.

esotericn 7y ago
Completely agree with you here. I think I should have been more clear in the original post as a whole bunch of commenters seem to be talking about situations in which you _could_ have got a local job, it'd just be a bit less well paid. I'm talking about working remotely to escape a locally depressed job market which is very different (because in that situation you are relatively unique).

clktmr 7y ago

So much wrong with this comment: Remote work doesn't mean home office. You can rent part of a shared office and still have colleagues for lunch. You don't need to move to a place where you will be 'the rich guy'. It's your choice. Even with your big tech salary you won't be better off than the local business owners in a place with around 20k inhabitants.

esotericn 7y ago
> Even with your big tech salary you won't be better off than the local business owners Exactly! But you're not a local business owner.
pb7 7y ago
How much do you local business owners profit on average?
- clktmr 7y ago
  The average isn't relevant to my point. But in every town you'll find doctors, lawyers etc. who have a healthy social life despite their high income.

growlist 7y ago

> I don't see how that benefits anyone Putting London money into a poorer economy that really needs it, rather than back into London, which doesn't?

csomar 7y ago

You seem to have no friends/family or attachment to a particular social circle; which makes the physical connections with your co-workers valuable. If you have a very active social circle, you won't probably care that much about joining your co-workers for an after-work. The point of remote work is that you don't need to move to Silicon Valley to get a good job. And unless you are living in the middle of no-where, small communities still have very wealthy people who are probably wealthier than you'll ever become. Why didn't they move? Because they have roots there. Living in relatively poor/clean community is and co-working is still a good thing. You can then afford to have a family, something most people don't and you'll be able to buy more services. Then, you are helping the locals out there and reducing inequality.