But the last couple of times I've gone backpacking in Southeast Asia, you can't go to any hostel common area without at least a handful of nomad-bros on their MacBook and a Chang bragging to anyone nearby about "yea I'm a digital nomad, I'm making so much money even while just chilling at this bar". A lot of them have somehow turned the travel aspect of the culture into "just part of the job", as if the only reason they are traveling is because "working and traveling is cool", rather than simply "travel is cool".
The majority of "nomads" I've encountered seem like they are mostly uninterested in travel, but they do it anyway because that's "what you're supposed to do" if you're a nomad. This leads to a bizarre culture where talking about the places they've been becomes more of a "digital nomad resume" than it does a recounting of enjoyable travel experiences. Instead of "I went to the Batu Caves and it was gorgeous, they have such interesting architecture there!", it becomes "yea I've been to the Batu Caves, there's a really nice cafe with good wifi just outside that I used to work from".
Have you ever had a conversation with a professional consultant and they have this weird habit of bragging about waking up at 4am to catch flights to NYC, and the only thing they ever tell you about NYC is how nice the Midtown Marriott's beds are? It's kind of like that.
It's inane peacocking. Virtue signaling without any virtue. Etc. Yuppies never die.
That's one reason I avoid Indonesia. Everyone there is just toxic in terms of tourists.
Japan and Philippines are much more rewarding and much less "digital nomads." It used to be fun, but if you're part of any of the online groups on facebook it's a toxic sub culture.
Personally I found the Ubud-style “wellness” tourist to be the worst.
Digital Nomads are in those places because it affords them a great lifestyle at minimal cost.
Perhaps you’re also confusing travel with sight seeing. For me personally I love to travel but have little care for temples, churches, most waterfalls (unless it’s something truly spectacular) and other architectures which there are millions of around the world, or honestly are just a bit underwhelming. For me, travel is about being in amongst different cultures and experiencing what it’s like to live in a different place, and having unique experiences that you don’t get elsewhere.
Yes, maybe some people are only taking advantage of the lifestyle and have little care for their environment, but like any group of people there’s a spectrum.
*by which I mean, less intense scrutiny at the border, which seems to be a privilege of westerners (I am one) in these countries vs. say, south east asians.
I would expect the economic benefit to the country to be significantly positive:
1. Every dollar spent is foreign income
2. Limited future costs to governmen: no retirement (huge cost), no unemployment benefits, no health (tourists should be insured - foreign income if actually need to use health services), no education.
3. Taxation still occurs (sales tax, wages of anyone working in a business the tourist uses).
edit: 4. If the working tourist wasn’t in the country, the country would see zero of that income... It is marginal income.
edit: In New Zealand for example: 1/2 of NZ government spending is on social welfare and education; another 1/4 is on finance; and Sales tax is 12.5%. We should encourage foreigners to work here as there’s no way their spending wouldn’t help the country, especially if they are earning a lot and spending a lot. Working visas allow people to take jobs from locals, which not what “digital nomads” are doing.
Morally it's a bit hazy at the moment. But if we think we'd be OK with someone living in our own country in three month chunks, while all the income they generate that is not spent on local goods/services essentially goes offshore, then no problem I guess. Add to that the fact that for the analogy to be accurate, our hypothetical person would likely speak our country's language at an extremely basic level, or not at all.
edit: just saw your edit and now I will have to edit accordingly >_<
edit:
>Working visas allow people to take jobs from locals, which not what “digital nomads” are doing.
This is getting into slightly different ground than my OP. In the Asian countries I'm familiar with, almost all visas for foreigners do not take jobs from locals--they are for jobs locals can't do for whatever reason.
I agree with some of what you wrote about NZ and digital nomads' spending generally, but I still think it's reasonable to expect tax revenues from someone who is employed and in a country longer than 180 days. That's when the NZ government starts to consider NZ citizens as NZ tax residents--after 180 days in country. "Wanna stick around? Gotta contribute." is just my basic view I think, but thanks for your input.
NZ export income is ~40 Billion, with 5 million inhabitants (USD4000 each).
So anyone from a first world country earning overseas income and spending it here is a massive win for NZ, even without income tax (which pays for things they don’t get: social services and education)... So long as NZ can send them home if they stop spending, send them home if they can’t pay for expensive or chronic healthcare services, or send them home if it is causing significant negative social externalities. Even retirees from other countries should be welcome if they are spending savings.
The Thailand example is more complicated and I did look at some of the economic numbers. I would struggle to see how getting significant foreign earnings could be anything but economically positive for Thailand - so long as the “digital nomads” are spending above say USD10000 per year and are not causing significant social harm.
The vast majority of them are spending $20,000 or less. VAT is Thailand is 7% so that's $1,400 in tax. And that's probably overstating things because much of their spending will be on things that go untaxed for one reason or another.
There's only a few thousand of these people in any given country, by most estimates I've seen. Which matches my personal experience. In any given country they will only be in 2-3 cities and if you spend time in those cities you'll be surprised how small the expat circles are even in a city of 10 million.
$1,200 in tax from 4,000 digital nomads is...$5,000,000. Thailand's economy generates $500,000,000,000 a year. The illegal expat contribution is a tiny, minuscule drop in the bucket.
Unsurprisingly, countries (just like neighborhoods that crack down on AirBNB) might want to optimize for people who want to stay long term, adopt their values, become part of the social fabric...not just maximize marginal income from people who will never even try to learn the language and don't have a single local friend.
What's more, the arguments all have a whiff of colonialism to them. If having foreigners working in your country and not paying income tax is so amazing....why don't you get your own country to do it first?
At the end of the day, the countries get to set their own laws. You don't get to ignore their laws because "well I'm an entitled middle class white man (there are effectively zero digital nomads who aren't white men, in my experience) and I'm bringing a lot of money into their economy don't you know!"
"Digital nomad" is just a "white person who is an illegal immigrant".
agreed... and there certainly are visa paths for people willing to participate in this sort of optimisation, the Korean visa I hold being a good example.
>What's more, the arguments all have a whiff of colonialism to them.
As do the blithe statements about "<country> is so CHEAP." That's always a bit cringe.
Why would they want that? Perhaps the best part about Westerners, and why they get privileged treatment at the borders, is that they reliably leave.
> $1,200 in tax from 4,000 digital nomads is...$5,000,000.
The export income from nomads spending money earned elsewhere is the total amount they spend less the imports they cost: it is certainly not just the VAT. USD10000 x 4000 is 40 million of export income - that is actually a significant number that politicians would chase after (well, they would here in NZ).
> Thailand's economy generates $500,000,000,000 a year.
Thailand’s export income is ~215 billion (2017), not 500.
> The expat contribution is a tiny, minuscule drop in the bucket.
Irrelevant: you could say about every small export business, so why not close them all?
Economically, look at the marginal benefit of adding one digital nomad, and decide whether the benefits (export income, but also positive externalities) outweigh the costs (negative externalities like social costs of having “bad” foreigners, or “colonialism” etcetera).
The marginal export income from a digital nomad is say USD10000 per annum. That is economically great, so long as the social costs are not too high.
Note that I’m from NZ and I definitely think it would be economically worthwhile to have high income digital nomads come here even if they pay zero income tax (see my cousin comment for that analysis).
Fundamentally: Thailand accepts foreign cockwomble tourists, so I can see little reason not to accept cockwomble “digital nomads” as well.
Edit: I actually empathise with your sentiments: New Zealand gets a lot of tourists (1 in 7 jobs are directly in the tourist industry), and for a long time we allowed foreigners to buy property, so I have seen some of the social damage they do. Albeit the damage from tourists is much less than Thailand from what I have personally seen. Although NZ is more of a “white” country, we still have mixed feeling towards wealthy US people e.g. Theil bought himself a passport here. NZ is more egalitarian than the US, but still has more wealth inequality than the scandy countries (on average most Maori are hit particularly hard).
Edit 2: It’s only really a legal difference between (a) a person that works at home then travels to spend money as a tourist, and (b) a person that works as a digital nomad while a tourist. The distinction is arbitrary. Countries can make whatever rules they like, but if you want tourists, you want digital nomads. NZ gets plenty of backpacker tourists that spend fuck all per day and we welcome them.
As I mentioned, I live in a South East Asian country and have for many years. There is a difference between tourists and people staying long-term and working illegally on repeated tourist visas.
Fundamentally, though, it isn't up to you or me. Those countries have their laws. They made their decisions. They don't want that marginal money. It isn't up to a bunch of white foreigners to tell them they made the wrong decision and laws don't apply to them.
Both Thailand and Vietnam have recently (in the past 6-12 months) changed their visa system to try to get rid of these illegal workers.
1. My summary: it’s illegal to be a digital nomad on a tourist visa. My response: illegal doesn’t mean the law is sensible. You make no argument that it is sensible. We all accept the laws given to us. I’ve argued there is very little difference between a tourist and a digital nomad (within the limits pointed out). “It’s illegal therefore bad” is not a very compelling argument in any country.
2. My summary: Digital nomads don’t pay taxes and are not paying their way. My response: I have pointed out many ways that it surely makes economic sense to have foreign earners in a country even if they are on tourist visas.
Also, repeatedly bringing up “white” in your comments is borderline behaviour IMHO, and doesn’t do you any favours.
> $1,200 in tax from 4,000 digital nomads is...$5,000,000. Thailand's economy generates $500,000,000,000 a year.
How are you only measuring direct tax income? They're spending foreign earned income on Airbnbs, hostels, bars, restaurants, likely multiples more than the average local, to the point that many successful businesses in Southeast Asia would cease to exist without a steady stream of these people.
> want to optimize for people who want to stay long term, adopt their values, become part of the social fabric
These countries don't want these people as permanent residents. As other posters pointed out, part of the unspoken contract is that they're leaving at some point. They come, they spend, and they leave before they get old and sick. If they were really taking more in services than they spent into GDP, the visa situations would change very quickly.
> What's more, the arguments all have a whiff of colonialism to them.
Please go travel to an immigration office in a third world country and see if you feel like you're exercising your white privilege. Officials in these countries tolerate travelers to the point that they're making out economically, but know they are in control. There's no subservience.
> there are effectively zero digital nomads who aren't white men
Sounds like you need to get involved in different social circles. I've seen the split to be about 50/50 gender-wise.
> Please go travel to an immigration office in a third world country and see if you feel like you're exercising your white privilege. Officials in these countries tolerate travelers to the point that they're making out economically, but know they are in control. There's no subservience.
I disagree strongly with this one statement. White privilege is definitely a thing. I have been a white tourist in many countries, and “travelling while white” simplifies plenty of things dramatically, and you can get away with things that a normal local cannot. However, I would guess 95% of that is due to the assumption made by locals that white === tourist === wealthy. The simple ability to fly into some countries immediately shows you are relatively very wealthy compared to the locals. I have also got away with plenty of shit as a English speaking tourist in “white” countries (euro and US), so colour isn’t the only thing. I do try to be generally respectful when I am a guest in other countries. Also I’m not American, which helps a lot as they seem to have a bad reputation most places.... Tourist often gets you the same privileges: I’ve seen white and non-white tourists in NZ get away with batshit crazy shit!
I was in Canggu in feb and it was full of digital nomad types and pretty prosperous. I just looked it up the other day and the nomads/tourists are gone due to covid and the locals are broke and often have no food. I sent some money to a soup kitchen operation to help feed a few who used to have decent jobs. They were definately better off before.
This is an important point. What do anti-immigration people in the US complain about? Immigrants taking jobs and benefits. That's it. Digital nomads are doing neither.
That still doesn't make it right, but maybe it's a low priority problem for the government.
Also most of these countries (ie: Thailand) rely a lot on direct taxation and provide no services for foreigners. So they are not really leaching that much on government expense.
Working, traveling, and BRAGGING about it, is not cool.
Is it worth reading? It sounds like the ideas it teaches might be either outdated or just plain false at this point.
For some reason it reminded me of Trump's first book, The Art of the Deal.
They're both primarily selling the same thing, the glorification of the author's image.
This is exactly why it's so popular.
Even auth (okta, GSuite) is a commodity.
In the business of selling online? None I think, I don't see how dropshipping can fit in the future, what's the value of having a middle man that don't stock when goods producers can setup their own online shop or sell directly via Amazon?
It seems like this scenario wouldn't work so well without a middleman not stocking the product(s).
Can I rephrase your question as "what's the value in selling things on the internet, when Amazon already does that?"?
What I wanted to highlight was that nowadays given that producers can sell directly, or through Amazon if they can’t handle logistics, dropshipping has become irrelevant.
If you really want to work less and enjoy life more, the FIRE community (Mr Money Mustache is a good gateway) is a more sustainable/achievable path. The specific types of businesses that The 4-hour Workweek recommends (dropshipping, podcasts, Youtubing, blogging, consulting) are crapshoots. And we can't have a world where everyone's dropshipping and peddling their e-courses and newsletters to everyone else for a living - it makes no sense on a macro level.
It's still a fun, breezy read and opens your eyes to other possibilities.
IMO The 4-hour Body is way more useful and practical. Pretty much everyone who reads it can find something that will benefit them.
Also he really talked up virtual assistants a lot as you say. I don't hear a lot about them anymore, is it still a useful thing?
With the relatively small start-up costs, if you can limit the downside risk it's worth a shot. But as with anything with a low barrier of entry people grossly miscalculate the odds of success - easy to begin does not equate to easy to win.
And that's when the "$0 to $100,000 in 30 days" ebook hucksters jump in with all the answers.