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Comment by tomcooks | Hacker News Reader

The owner of this company knows how to order coffee in spanish, wow. /s

Don't bother learning the local language. Don't bother hanging out at local cheap bars. Don't bother paying a fair price for things. Abuse parts of the world and turn them into playgrounds for "bloggers" and "YouTube creators".

Digital nomads, especially from the Silicon Valley startup area, are the new digital colonialists destroying Asia and Europe (viz. the gentification of Thailand and Portugal) so that they can have 9$ massages and a story to tell. Fuck you, from the deepest part of my soul.

Let the downvotes pour. /rant

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Would you mind please posting civilly and substantively instead of rants?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Neither Portugal or Thailand have been authentic cultural destinations in decades. What you see as "gentrification", they see as "progress" and a prerequisite to future tourist dollars.

Borneo, Myanmar and rural Cambodia are a few hours at most from Bangkok. The Balkans and eastern Europe are also only a couple of hours by plane from Lisbon. Next to zero digital nomads, bloggers or "YouTube creators".

I think you are mistaken about Portugal or Thailand not having been culturally significant in decades, and I suggest taking a second look on the current state of the Balkans gentification (Croatia and Montenegro first, Albania next).

I suggest asking to locals where to find a bar for old people downtown, with cheap coffee/tea. When they'll tell you that such places do not exist anymore and were transformed in yet another hipster barbershop, burger bar or McDonald fast food parlor (looking at you Lisboa) maybe you'll agree it's not progress - it's whoring yourself to uninterested tourists.

Both countries are still incredibly culturally significant, they've just traded their authenticity for whatever tricks draw dollars.

Thailand for example has been a hedonistic paradise for several decades. Full moon parties, rampant prostitution and cheap surgery. I'm guessing you've never been to Koh Phangan, Patong Road or Pattaya if you think it's the digital nomads destroying Thailand.

Can't speak for Portugal but having traveled around south east asia on and off for 10 years now I'm pretty sure the Thai's are quite capable of gentrifying their own country, I think they call it "progress".

Obviously it's always the locals starting the gentrification, after all they're the ones selling buildings to foreign rental companies. That's why it's mandatory to mingle with locals, in their own language, and not alter the local economy with stupid standards.

The difference between self-gentrification or gentrification based on foreign investments, just as in Portugal, is that on one side you have a country that decides from its own fate. On the other side you have foreigners setting high prices and changing the local economy.

The "progress" you mention tends to happen in cities with a lot of of disinvested foreigneers.

I invite you to check the rent data for Chiang Mai and Lisbon between 2000 and 2018, or better yet ask to locals. You'll notice a striking difference in prices, especially for what concerns rent and food, compared to places without masses of digital colonialists.

Thailand has been developing regions by selling travel experiences, girlfriend experiences and retirement to paradise to foreigners since before "digital nomads" were a thing, and there's no shortage of gentrified cafes and bars aimed squarely at Thais in areas Western bloggers and YouTubers don't venture. As more authentic an experience as it might have been when Ko Samui was an unspoilt island where you might be able to use your broken Thai to persuade a local fisherman to rent his hut to you, ultimately the Thais would rather not continue to be poor. And of all the problems with tourism in Thailand, digital nomads paying 250 baht for a flat white and veggieburger in some restored old building with neo-hippy decor in the tourist showpiece part of Chiang Mai has got to be very close to the bottom.

Yeah, I'm in Thailand now, it's more expensive than 10 years ago, no doubt. But that's the nature of economies, Thailand is "tiger economy", it's been relatively stable and economically prosperous growing at decent rates for nigh on 20 years now (since the Asian financial crisis). It's no less immune from wealth concentrating in larger cities than the UK or the US is, rents in London, New York, <insert any other major city> have been going up over the same time period.

"Digital colonists" are a drop in the bucket compared to the forces driving that change.

Your resentment may or may not be valid. Can you explain any reasoning behind it?

Sure, resentment about what?

- This PR article pushed on HN?

- Gentrification of beautiful cities?

- Entitled colonialism?

> Don't bother learning the local language. Don't bother hanging out at local cheap bars. Don't bother paying a fair price for things.

My friends and I study Thai. We love cheap bars where local people hang out. We don't haggle, and we tip generously. We try hard to abide by local customs.

> Digital nomads, especially from the Silicon Valley startup area, are the new digital colonialists destroying Asia

My teachers are glad I'm here. The people at the restaurants and cafes I frequent are glad to have my business. When I ask Uber or Grab drivers in Thai if they like their work, they almost always say yes.

You call it gentrification, but the locals seem to prefer living in the city rather than the villages where they were born. Do you think they'd prefer it if people like me decided to just stay home rather than travel? I don't. And I'm actually here. Where are you doing all that hating from?

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