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The podcast Pivot has a host who has referred to Coronavirus as "the great accelerator", meaning trends that were grabbing hold have only sped up under the pand

The podcast Pivot has a host who has referred to Coronavirus as "the great accelerator", meaning trends that were grabbing hold have only sped up under the pandemic. Remote work is definitely one of those. I'm curious if your last paragraph holds true or not. The same thing was said about "digital nomads" in the freelance space. While it certainly got a lot of headlines and made a lot of people have some wonderful fantasies (myself included), the realities of being a digital nomad really kept the trend from taking off. Family, friends, a social group, the desire to put down roots... these are things pretty ingrained in society and are hard to overcome for all but a very small number of people. I wonder if COVID forcing remote work to the mainstream will actually increase the number of digital nomads (as per your last paragraph) or merely lead to a revival of small-sized (but more lifestyle-oriented) cities like your second paragraph speaks to. If I had to put down a bet, I'd bet on your second paragraph (people moving to smaller cities) and bet against your last paragraph (people moving readily and consistently). I'd bet that it's not the job tying people to a city, but rather their social group.

gremlinsinc 6y ago
you don't have to be a digital nomad. We've been living in a rural'ish city (Cedar city, UT), that isn't a tech hub for awhile now. I'm a freelance dev (underpaid probably $40/hr). But, I like living wherever I want, and not having to move. Plus wife's family is nearby which comes in handy. I think one big thing though about the have-nots divide increasing is this is going to speed up automation unlike anything we've seen before. Walmart is already testing getting rid of cashiers completely. Remote work I think (and hope) will end the big cities / tech hubs and make people move further and further out and be more rural, and keep remote working growing..
- nonveumann 6y ago
  Check out Robin Hanson's Twitter. His hobby horse recently has been finding _any_ evidence that total employment is affected by recent automation and he's not really finding any.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    How about stagnant and declining real wages and decreasing income security for most people? https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    When in SE Asia, it's common to see 20 staff in a store the size of a 7-11, while here it's one or two. (Note that most are unpaid interns, but then I'm the only customer.) So the US has already minimized the number of unskilled staff relative to some other countries. Ironically, tech companies often have a shadow engineering organization of 10 or more customer service engineers per company sitting around waiting for an email to help onboard a new client.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Sure, there's always more work to be done. Technological progress in production, like automation, reduces the proportional costs of labor, thereby accelerating inequity. Because surplus (profit), not siphoned by management, goes to the investors (providers of capital). This has always been true. Some notable exceptions are profit sharing arrangements, like early Walmart, Microsoft, etc. (Edit: Toyota too. They explicitly reward Labor for productivity improvements. I don't know if that's still true, generally. More recently, Haier has their own unique strategy for innovation and empowering labor. I'm super keen to learn more about them. I have no idea if they share the surplus more fairly. Of course, co-ops explicitly share the surplus; can't believe I forgot about them.) -- Seems to me that everyone, everyone, is determined to not see the pink elephant sitting in the living room. Paul Krugman is maybe closest, with his theory that "job stealing robots" is a convenient cover story for decline of Labor. Like how Big Timber deflected blame for job losses onto the spotted owl away from automation.
- lyonlim 6y ago
  Removing cashiers and automating checkouts just frees up the staff to focus on other in-store work. But the biggest benefit is higher throughput for checkouts. Self service checkouts or automated checkouts free up space for more such counters.
  - s1t5 6y ago
    > Removing cashiers and automating checkouts just frees up the staff to focus on other in-store work. The supermarkets are functioning fine which leads me to think that there isn't a whole lot of other in-store work waiting to be done if only more staff were free to do it. Automating the checkouts just reduces the levels of staff that you need.
    - kyawzazaw 6y ago
      store pickup items is one way. and some can do their own small delivery

gremlinsinc 6y ago

you don't have to be a digital nomad. We've been living in a rural'ish city (Cedar city, UT), that isn't a tech hub for awhile now. I'm a freelance dev (underpaid probably $40/hr). But, I like living wherever I want, and not having to move. Plus wife's family is nearby which comes in handy. I think one big thing though about the have-nots divide increasing is this is going to speed up automation unlike anything we've seen before. Walmart is already testing getting rid of cashiers completely. Remote work I think (and hope) will end the big cities / tech hubs and make people move further and further out and be more rural, and keep remote working growing..

nonveumann 6y ago
Check out Robin Hanson's Twitter. His hobby horse recently has been finding _any_ evidence that total employment is affected by recent automation and he's not really finding any.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  How about stagnant and declining real wages and decreasing income security for most people? https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  When in SE Asia, it's common to see 20 staff in a store the size of a 7-11, while here it's one or two. (Note that most are unpaid interns, but then I'm the only customer.) So the US has already minimized the number of unskilled staff relative to some other countries. Ironically, tech companies often have a shadow engineering organization of 10 or more customer service engineers per company sitting around waiting for an email to help onboard a new client.
- specialist 6y ago
  Sure, there's always more work to be done. Technological progress in production, like automation, reduces the proportional costs of labor, thereby accelerating inequity. Because surplus (profit), not siphoned by management, goes to the investors (providers of capital). This has always been true. Some notable exceptions are profit sharing arrangements, like early Walmart, Microsoft, etc. (Edit: Toyota too. They explicitly reward Labor for productivity improvements. I don't know if that's still true, generally. More recently, Haier has their own unique strategy for innovation and empowering labor. I'm super keen to learn more about them. I have no idea if they share the surplus more fairly. Of course, co-ops explicitly share the surplus; can't believe I forgot about them.) -- Seems to me that everyone, everyone, is determined to not see the pink elephant sitting in the living room. Paul Krugman is maybe closest, with his theory that "job stealing robots" is a convenient cover story for decline of Labor. Like how Big Timber deflected blame for job losses onto the spotted owl away from automation.
lyonlim 6y ago
Removing cashiers and automating checkouts just frees up the staff to focus on other in-store work. But the biggest benefit is higher throughput for checkouts. Self service checkouts or automated checkouts free up space for more such counters.
- s1t5 6y ago
  > Removing cashiers and automating checkouts just frees up the staff to focus on other in-store work. The supermarkets are functioning fine which leads me to think that there isn't a whole lot of other in-store work waiting to be done if only more staff were free to do it. Automating the checkouts just reduces the levels of staff that you need.
  - kyawzazaw 6y ago
    store pickup items is one way. and some can do their own small delivery