Yes it would be unwise. The authorities let everyone go once they figure out what was going on - they seemed to think the people were employees of the cafe...

Yes it would be unwise. The authorities let everyone go once they figure out what was going on - they seemed to think the people were employees of the cafe... The policy is fairly straightforward, but letting people do "digital nomad" work while trying to stop those taking jobs in a country isn't so easy. A bunch of countries in SE Asia seem to have economic development people in favor of attracting these people to their country. But coordinating with the immigration enforcement authorities isn't very well developed (given the systems in place this isn't an easy problem it will likely be messy for awhile). And if long term visitors are seen as negative (often for acting out and making asses of themselves) this can lead to crackdowns. A few jerks are very noticeable, so a large community of good visitors can be seen as a negative based on just a few bad actors.