Hacker News Reader

Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

More than anything else, I've been surprised by the number of cryptocurrency acquaintances I know who have uprooted and moved to Florida. They've all cited taxes and cheap housing as primary motivators when asked initially, but there's also a significant network effect: they mention it as being an area where the tech community is actually friendly to them.

I don't particularly like cryptocurrencies, but I found that thought-provoking.

View on HN

I was wondering why there are so many big crypto conferences in Miami[1][2][3]! I'd bet Miami is the center-of-gravity for crypto enthusiasts for the same reason Art Basel is in Miami. (I assume because of all the money floating around, not all made 100% above-the-board)

[1] https://b.tc/conference/

[2] https://www.btcmiami.com/

[3] https://cryptoworldcon.com/

Initially it was lack of COVID restrictions which allowed the most risk-tolerant to continue in-person events.

I have no data, but it certainly seems like many of the crypto-partisan VCs have moved to Miami, which is probably the real network effect at play. (Cf. Wyoming has also bent over backward to welcome cryptocurrency folks, without the same fanfare.)

Oh, that's an excellent point. I've had people bring that up to me, as well.

Florida is the destination for financial newsletter publishers. Any old shtick will do - bear markets, bonds, bull markets, commodities, etc. Just buy a house and scrape other sites for content that you sell to noobs and rubes looking to be as "rich" as you.

A few years ago a bunch of the more libertarian among them sold out fearing an inevitable civil war after a recent election and they took their asses and assets to Puerto Rico where they could keep their citizenship and passports but dodge even more tax liability. Funny enough it was just in time for Hurricane Maria to hose the island. Now they live in their gated enclaves and wander out long enough to sample the excellent local food before going back inside so they don't have to deal with the people they can't converse with since they don't understand Spanish.

As a geoscientist I am disappointed that some geological processes take so long. The inundation of Florida should be turned up to 11. Let the rats surf some driftwood while they search for a new dry spot to shit on.

> cheap housing

Really? Compared to what? Is there some place there is cheap housing?

Compared to NYC, LA, and the Bay Area (the other places they'd generally like to live). Miami and the other "high life" parts of Florida are not cheap on an absolute scale, but they are cheap relative to their weight class.

Everything is relative. We moved from Austin to Orlando last year for family reasons and our new house of roughly equivalent size/amenities was significantly less than our Austin house. And now we wouldn’t be able to afford our old Austin house.

Not saying it’s not bad here — it’s just less worse than some places.

There is plenty of cheap housing in florida if you don't need waterfront, and depending on where you are coming from, possibly huge savings on state income tax, that may very well make your mortgage payments with the savings, or at a minimum offset it quite a bit.

Every single bubble of bad ideas ends up bursting in Florida to me, remember the bad condos leading to the 2008 crisis?

There's a good Odd Lots podcast episode[1] that kind of touches on this (back to the Binder Boys).

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/odd-lots-...

YMMV, but a very large percentage of people I know who have claimed that SF/NYC isn't "friendly" enough to tech have, upon further elucidation, zero emotional intelligence around gentrification and almost universally think of Uber and WeWork as success stories.

This is to say, in case it's not clear, that being "friendly" just isn't enough for them; they want everyone around them to acknowledge just how great and special tech is. If you're not kissing their ass, you're not being friendly.

The people I know who moved to Florida are a little better than that: many are NYC natives, and are well aware of what gentrification looks like in that context.

I do think they have a somewhat myopic view of their own work, however.

Never understood the opposition to gentrification -- are people looking at NYC in the 1970s and thinking "yes, that's the urban ideal right there"?

I think the thought is closer to "NYC is pretty close to ideal right now, and I don't need a combination Starbucks and Lululemon in my neighborhood." Which, of course, it actually isn't! But nobody really wants to return to 1970s or 1980s New York.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com