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Comment by JumpinJack_Cash | Hacker News Reader

Change my mind: The Netherlands are in the top percentile of every quality of life metric except for weather.

From pensions, to drugs, to sex work, to engineering they are always at the frontier.

No big tech but that's more a function of 'working to live' vs. 'living to work' than outright inability to mint unicorns.

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> The Netherlands are in the top percentile of every quality of life metric except for weather.

I’m not going to say it’s bad because on average it isn’t, but this is patently untrue. The Dutch housing market is one of the worst in the world, and doubly so if you don’t speak Dutch or are on a budget. Double whammy for international students.

The healthcare system is... let me put it this way. As an Indian, I’d rather be in the Netherlands if there was a critical medical condition. You’re not actively suicidal or dying in the next 24 hours? Excellent, join the seven month waitlist for getting medical help. Or become suicidal enough to go to the ER, and then back to the waitlist you go!

In India (and what I’ve seen/heard of UK/US private healthcare) you can get faster treatment if you can pay. Nothing of that sort here haha.

(I should probably add that Germany and Belgium have similar issues from what I’ve heard, though that doesn’t excuse the Netherlands.)

> and doubly so if you don’t speak Dutch or are on a budget

Like literally anywhere in the world, in the vast majority of country if you show up poor and not able to speak the language you won't find a place to live.

Yeah but not really. In a lot of places if you can pay market rates landlords couldn’t care less about your language, especially if both of you are fluent in English. Important to note perhaps that this language thing is more for common/shared accommodations, not standalone units.

Also by on a budget I mean a budget that’ll get me a very decent place even in for example Germany. The prices and costs of accommodation in the Netherlands is hilarious, ask anyone living here. One of my professors literally moved to Belgium to save on rent, despite needing to make a multi-hour journey when commuting multiple times a week.

> In a lot of places if you can pay market rates landlords couldn’t care less about your language

How will you sign a contract you can't read ? Outside of tech hubs you can't even find a job in western Europe (not even speaking about the rest of the world) if you don't speak the language, without a job you won't find a place to rent

> Also by on a budget I mean a budget that’ll get me a very decent place even in for example Germany.

Compared to which city ?

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

I'm Dutch and work in tech. One of the reasons I'm a digital nomad is because Amsterdam is too expensive. For reference: the city center of Berlin is about twice as cheap, and Berlin isn't cheap anymore nowadays.

Well, one of the big reasons for that in the netherlands is they don't build places to live. Take a look at the satellite view of amsterdam. Huge cycling town, you'd expect everything within a 5 or 10 mile radius of the central rail station to be built up pretty well to maximize the bikeshed, right? Nope. Medieval low rise apartments that are illegal to replace, and protected agricultural lands within 5 miles just to rub salt on the wound that the farmer's tractors harvesting crops for export in zunderdorp have better transit access than you, a rent burdoned low income worker central to the amsterdam economy.

This is the only thing I ever read about healthcare in the Netherlands (and it’s from 2007, so I have no idea what things are like now):

https://supasuze.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/the-dutch-midwife-...

I first read it back in 2007, but I’ve always remembered it.

>(I should probably add that Germany and Belgium have similar issues from what I’ve heard, though that doesn’t excuse the Netherlands.)

For Belgium at least, these issues are not similar. Our housing prices are high in some cities but definitely not on the level of the Netherlands. And the waiting list for medical help is much less of an issue here.

Belgium definitely has their own issues (often issues that the Netherlands don't have), but the issues you listed are not as relevant in Belgium.

This is kind of an outdated notion. In the 90's NL was very progressive, but after 3 decades of conservative-neoliberal governments it's middling at most.

E.g. selling weed to stores is still illegal - massively funding the underworld because there's no legal supply - which is quite backwards compared to Canada & some US states. Or up until a few years ago NL was dead-last in the EU for amount of parental leave a father gets (2 days), which was only changed when the EU forced them to by setting a minimum. Most (semi-)public services like health, public transport, taxes and education are also performing poorly and/or very fragile after long periods of budget cuts and neoliberal policies.

> > massively funding the underworld because there's no legal supply

If the underworld only crime is to sell weed then what's the problem? It's just a matter of semantics. I think what you mean is that it's defacto legal but you have to chit-chat with some guy or gal who'd also try to sell you some of his/her music or a club entrance when they are DJ-ing as opposed to just ordering it on Amazon

The football ultras/hooligans phenomenon might also qualify as underworld but they mostly beat each others up

The “problem” with this sort of stuff happening in a non legal way is that you end up in a space with no worker protections, no legal recourse, a lot of uncertainty that can lead to exploitation, etc etc etc

Society existed that way for a long time but there’s a reason we stopped doing feudalism

To your point not having everything enter the capitalist sphere is good, I think it’s possible to navigate one without the other

The dark economy in the NL also now have enough cash at hand to bribe and threaten officials of all sorts.

Just like Italy then with the mafia and the landfills.

> If the underworld only crime is to sell weed then what's the problem?

Well it doesn't exist in a vacuum, crime = money, money = competition, competition = violence [0]

And it's not only weed, they're one of the main point of entry for coke in Europe [1]

Some even start to talk about a narco state given how widespread drug related gang violence and corruption is [2][3]

But yeah I guess it's easier to see it as a western progressive paradise

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/oct/06/cartel-journali...

[1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/e...

[2] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/narco-state-neth...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50821542

> If the underworld only crime is to sell weed then what's the problem? It's just a matter of semantics.

No it's not because it means it's also more profitable. More profit while something is illegal means it's more attractive to criminals to pursue. It means that the coke dealers, criminals from other EU countries (eastern Europeans or Russians) and other people that don't give a shit about The Netherlands will take it up and do it as a side hustle thing. And sure there are also "pure weed dealers", and yes for this group it's (almost) pure semantics. However, they now have to deal with crazed criminals that aren't afraid of shooting you when things go sour.

Source: I'm from Amsterdam, I've heard enough stories and anecdotal evidence is enough to challenge you on your assumptions that it's "just a matter of semantics".

Interesting and thanks for your perspective.

Would you say moving even further and legalize everything except heroin and fetanyl would make things better?

When everything is legal the only recourse for criminals to make money is extortion and even that could go away with full digital payments

It kinda did in Portugal in the nineties, including heroin btw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

* Attitude towards food. In many workplaces, universities, schools, etc. a doughnut with some syrup and colored candy sprinkled on it, or a sad sandwich of a lettuce between two slices of bread is seen as an acceptable lunch. Compared to the Netherlands, the country of Germany or Nordic countries seem like the ultimate foodie-paradise, which tells it all. Perhaps dutch people consume all the good food for supper in the privacy of their homes, but this is invisible to the public.

EDIT: "frikandel-automaat" -- that beast tells all you need to know about a country's attitude towards food.

* Over-designed, over-controlled environment. If your idea of high quality of life is ultramodern office-buildings with no natural light offices, cities with every square foot either concrete or manicured lawn, buildings where you cannot open a window, and cannot water the plant because some central authority takes care of it, and every aspect of your life is efficiently managed, then go for it. I for one, need some unstructured "messiness" every now and then, otherwise I start to feel tense.

* people are nice and open though, society seems to work pretty well, and companies are efficient. No unicorns? ASML makes the machines that make the machines that make semiconductors, the modern world runs on them.

> > no natural light

What natural light? As I said weather is very gloomy there

>>frikandel-automaat

I was just inspired by FEBO listing themselves on UberEats. I thought if they could put themselves on UberEats, I can aspire to be anything in life.

They have too many nimbys that make housing expensive and squander their transit infrastructure. places like zunderdorp or ransdorp or really that whole area outside the a10 in amsterdam are ripe opportunities for housing that is perfectly bikeable to a whole lot of transit, currently being used for agriculture like it has been for the last millenia, and at this rate will continue to be used for that for the next millenia. Then that leaves you with adding housing in town to match job growth demand, seems logical right? But you can't because of height limit ordinances prevent adding any meaningful housing supply even if you were allowed to take down a historic building. This leaves you with the inevitable end result we have today, of Amsterdam being one of the most expensive places to live in Europe.

I have a relative that is an university professor of some social sciences in the Netherlands (not sure what is the exact title); she is very left-leaning, she attended college and doctoral degree in the US and she was a professor in US for more than 10 years and in the Netherlands for almost 15 years: even she is not that optimistic about the country. I had very long discussions in the past 10 years (we spend family vacations together) and she believes the Netherlands is better in many aspects than US, but there are areas where it is a lot worse. The most obvious ones: healthcare, quality of services and social relations (including large scale xenofobia, not so well hidden).

I moved to the Netherlands when I found out that I am going blind. I really enjoy it here - it's very accessible which is my number one need; but with that accessibility comes a more peaceful and active lifestyle. I'm starting a family here and I've been very impressed all around about the process. It makes being a good parent much easier: parental leave, cheap birth, government takes care of things like vaccinations/baby checkups, parks are everywhere, and many dads take "papadag" on Wednesday off from work to spend time with their kids. I'm really happy to be here and I appreciate all of the benefits that come with it. I had to start a business to get a visa but despite all of that hard work it's still very worth it to me.

Housing affordability is a problem at the moment.

I've heard relatively bad things about Dutch healthcare from people who have had to use it - basically the doctors will either give you vitamins, or antibiotics and operate, with little nuance inbetween. Maybe it was "foreign student/young person" bias though.

Dutch healthcare has many issues, also for non-foreigners.

If they prescribed antibiotics it’s either not true or the person was bordering septicaemia :)

There are a decent amount of big tech jobs here. Uber/Meta/Amazon have a local presence, there are many other non-FAANG tech companies HQ'd here (Booking.com, Adyen), and some household names that also hire remotely or have some presence here.

Can you keep it? As I read 1.55 births per woman, with population growth probably fueled by low skilled immigrant labor. Yeah, you might educate them in time to maintain that high standard of living, you might not.

Programmer wages are pretty low compared to cost of living.

Rent is not cheap, but if you are okay with 1 hour commute you can live in the Hague, Leiden or Utrecht. Less tourists also.

Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region.

> Btw, there are large companies in AMS (Booking, Amazon, Meta, Uber) and some financial shops. It's not comparable with US, but definitely in top3 in EMEA region.

Yes, only those big companies pay "ok" wages.

To all others thinking "but free healthcare/whatever/etc", then why don't these companies pay enough (compared to USA,England) for remote where you only pay in gross?

"but free healthcare" is ridiculous too. I don't think people understand how cheap healthcare now is in the U.S.. I know people on ACA plans that cover health, dental, and vision, copays in line with what I pay, for about $75 a month (I think this is silver tier). Chances are you are taking a much bigger salary hit working in europe than $75 a month. I guess you can save on education, but that savings probably starts looking smaller too when you consider in state tuition rates, community college credit prices, or the fact most private colleges dish out full ride financial aid packages like candy to anyone making below a certain threshold.

Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxemburg, Spain.

The Netherlands is definitely not in the top 3 of European tech wages vs cost of living.

You forgot a big one: Urban Planning.

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