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This article really isn't about remote work writ large, it's about websites/organizations that provide platforms for individuals to sell services to consumers.

This article really isn't about remote work writ large, it's about websites/organizations that provide platforms for individuals to sell services to consumers. The fact that you can make popular workout videos from your home is orthogonal to the behavior of consumers on the Peloton platform. It's an interesting and important observation that good communicators win disproportionately as telecommunications get better - e.g. because recorded music is a thing, as a songwriter/guitarist I'm competing with Frank Zappa for mindshare. But this just isn't about remote work. Feel like I got clickbaited.

echopurity 5y ago
It's got to be clickbait. If there are winners, then how many workers are losing by working remotely? It seems obvious that the vast majority of people win big by not being forced to commute into a full day at an office where they would rather not be.
- francisofascii 5y ago
  To use an example from the parent post, local, cyclist spin trainers are losing, since people are simply using the Pelaton trainers at home, rather than going to an "in person" spin class. The local, small time trainer can't compete with a celebrity/model trainer. Similar to how TV and movies hurt local theatres. In the end, it is more efficient, but there are "losers".
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.
    - umeshunni 5y ago
      The same principles that apply to remote work apply here. Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take that same class in my garage or living room.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Because you want to get out of the house and socialize with people as well as get some exercise. Now some of the same logic does apply to people wanting to get back into office. But I doubt it's true to the same degree and most people have more than a 10-15 minute commute. While I have no personal interest in gyms or exercise classes, they are social for many people.
      - edgyquant 5y ago
        There's a difference between social interaction because you want it and working. I work from home and use the gym and martial as (non-drinking) social time during the week.
      - asdff 5y ago
        because then you wouldn't need a spin bike in your garage or living room
      - mym1990 5y ago
        Because some people like to have separation of concerns in their life. I don't necessarily want to have my home be where I workout and where I work. Especially given that I live in a small studio. I do classes 1x a week still, and being in a room, 15 minutes down the street, surrounded by people in the same mindset helps me focus on that task. This doesn't fit into everyone's wants and needs...but just because you can't fathom why YOU would want to do something doesn't mean there isn't a completely valid reason for those around you.
      - teclordphrack2 5y ago
        There are urban areas where the housing choices, the lack of space, means you are going to be doing your hobbies outside of the home.
  - Damogran6 5y ago
    There's also the people using spin class trainers in Apple+ that wouldn't ordinarily use one...it's not a zero sum game. (I have it playing the the background as I ride my roadbike, it provides enthusiasm even if the effort doesn't line up with the road.)
- Johnny555 5y ago
  how many workers are losing by working remotely I think the big losers are the service workers that provided services for all of those office employees: coffee shop workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided employee lunches, cleaning people, etc. A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in my former office building have shut down permanently. My company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff. Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in-office work, but since it will probably be part time in-office work, not all of those jobs will be back. Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy.
  - spaceisballer 5y ago
    You’re exactly correct here. Our complex isn’t in the greatest area, but it sure was nice to have a dry cleaner right across the street. But in our complex we had a cafeteria and two satellite snack places. They are closed until our building hits a % of capacity as stated in their contract. I feel like there is a big opportunity for food trucks. Maybe use those empty mall parking lots and set up some times for people to grab food, set up outdoor dining.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    Yeah, there are a lot of businesses that have gone under because they were geared to serving office workers. Out here in Silicon Valley, a Panera-esque chain called Specialty’s just shut down completely within a couple months after offices closed; most of their locations were only open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. Downtown San Jose hasn’t been completely decimated, but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of places that aren’t coming back. (N.B.: There is one Specialty’s location that has re-opened, near Moffett in Mountain View; apparently the family that started the chain decades ago bought the assets, and their one original location, back.)
  - InitialBP 5y ago
    I think in general you'll just see a lot of those restaurants and businesses that provide services to office employees move to where they can provide services to remote employees. Service industry businesses generally follow people and if people aren't going downtown everyday and instead hanging around the suburbs, then you'll likely see more starbucks etc in the suburbs serving that crowd.
hatmatrix 5y ago
The winners of remote work are those whose services are scalable, and those who excel at it. The content and conclusion was also not what I was expecting, but you can see that it's a completely valid title if you allow yourself to see it from a different perspective.
- diego_moita 5y ago
  > are those whose services are scalable Exactly! I am surprised so few people here see that. It is a pattern that happened with other technologies before. Music recording allowed some pop stars to become millionaires while most musicians lost income. Movies allowed some actors to get rich while most actors lost public. Industrial manufacturing (e.g. woodworking, textiles, tanning) made some industries big while millions of artisans lost market. Franchised merchant stores (e.g: Tower Records, Toys'R Us, WallMart) destroyed thousands of small merchants. The economist J. Schumpeter had a name for this: "creative destruction".
socialist_coder 5y ago
The article specifically mentions programmers as well... Lower floor because a global workforce increases supply of programmers available to the western market. Higher ceiling because every company is now competing for the top people, who are in limited supply and know how to get top compensation. So yes, I do think this applies to remote work in general.
- roflc0ptic 5y ago
  It mentions programmers without making any particular claims about it; they don’t actually demonstrate any losers. Outsourcing to India has been a thing for many years, and US companies appear to have every incentive to take advantage of it, but somehow they keep paying pleasantly high wages to Americans.

echopurity 5y ago

It's got to be clickbait. If there are winners, then how many workers are losing by working remotely? It seems obvious that the vast majority of people win big by not being forced to commute into a full day at an office where they would rather not be.

francisofascii 5y ago
To use an example from the parent post, local, cyclist spin trainers are losing, since people are simply using the Pelaton trainers at home, rather than going to an "in person" spin class. The local, small time trainer can't compete with a celebrity/model trainer. Similar to how TV and movies hurt local theatres. In the end, it is more efficient, but there are "losers".
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.
  - umeshunni 5y ago
    The same principles that apply to remote work apply here. Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take that same class in my garage or living room.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Because you want to get out of the house and socialize with people as well as get some exercise. Now some of the same logic does apply to people wanting to get back into office. But I doubt it's true to the same degree and most people have more than a 10-15 minute commute. While I have no personal interest in gyms or exercise classes, they are social for many people.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      There's a difference between social interaction because you want it and working. I work from home and use the gym and martial as (non-drinking) social time during the week.
    - asdff 5y ago
      because then you wouldn't need a spin bike in your garage or living room
    - mym1990 5y ago
      Because some people like to have separation of concerns in their life. I don't necessarily want to have my home be where I workout and where I work. Especially given that I live in a small studio. I do classes 1x a week still, and being in a room, 15 minutes down the street, surrounded by people in the same mindset helps me focus on that task. This doesn't fit into everyone's wants and needs...but just because you can't fathom why YOU would want to do something doesn't mean there isn't a completely valid reason for those around you.
    - teclordphrack2 5y ago
      There are urban areas where the housing choices, the lack of space, means you are going to be doing your hobbies outside of the home.
- Damogran6 5y ago
  There's also the people using spin class trainers in Apple+ that wouldn't ordinarily use one...it's not a zero sum game. (I have it playing the the background as I ride my roadbike, it provides enthusiasm even if the effort doesn't line up with the road.)
Johnny555 5y ago
how many workers are losing by working remotely I think the big losers are the service workers that provided services for all of those office employees: coffee shop workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided employee lunches, cleaning people, etc. A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in my former office building have shut down permanently. My company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff. Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in-office work, but since it will probably be part time in-office work, not all of those jobs will be back. Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy.
- spaceisballer 5y ago
  You’re exactly correct here. Our complex isn’t in the greatest area, but it sure was nice to have a dry cleaner right across the street. But in our complex we had a cafeteria and two satellite snack places. They are closed until our building hits a % of capacity as stated in their contract. I feel like there is a big opportunity for food trucks. Maybe use those empty mall parking lots and set up some times for people to grab food, set up outdoor dining.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  Yeah, there are a lot of businesses that have gone under because they were geared to serving office workers. Out here in Silicon Valley, a Panera-esque chain called Specialty’s just shut down completely within a couple months after offices closed; most of their locations were only open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. Downtown San Jose hasn’t been completely decimated, but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of places that aren’t coming back. (N.B.: There is one Specialty’s location that has re-opened, near Moffett in Mountain View; apparently the family that started the chain decades ago bought the assets, and their one original location, back.)
- InitialBP 5y ago
  I think in general you'll just see a lot of those restaurants and businesses that provide services to office employees move to where they can provide services to remote employees. Service industry businesses generally follow people and if people aren't going downtown everyday and instead hanging around the suburbs, then you'll likely see more starbucks etc in the suburbs serving that crowd.

hatmatrix 5y ago

The winners of remote work are those whose services are scalable, and those who excel at it. The content and conclusion was also not what I was expecting, but you can see that it's a completely valid title if you allow yourself to see it from a different perspective.

diego_moita 5y ago
> are those whose services are scalable Exactly! I am surprised so few people here see that. It is a pattern that happened with other technologies before. Music recording allowed some pop stars to become millionaires while most musicians lost income. Movies allowed some actors to get rich while most actors lost public. Industrial manufacturing (e.g. woodworking, textiles, tanning) made some industries big while millions of artisans lost market. Franchised merchant stores (e.g: Tower Records, Toys'R Us, WallMart) destroyed thousands of small merchants. The economist J. Schumpeter had a name for this: "creative destruction".

socialist_coder 5y ago

The article specifically mentions programmers as well... Lower floor because a global workforce increases supply of programmers available to the western market. Higher ceiling because every company is now competing for the top people, who are in limited supply and know how to get top compensation. So yes, I do think this applies to remote work in general.

roflc0ptic 5y ago
It mentions programmers without making any particular claims about it; they don’t actually demonstrate any losers. Outsourcing to India has been a thing for many years, and US companies appear to have every incentive to take advantage of it, but somehow they keep paying pleasantly high wages to Americans.