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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

Way back when I started my career - I almost COULDN'T take a good job in Boston, because I couldn't figure out how I could literally live there long enough to get my first few paychecks to pay for my rent.

I decided that I'd just go into credit card debt and live in the crappiest hotel that I could find until I had enough money to pay the first/last/security deposit.

Luckily, I found some shady landlord on Craigslist that turned out to be pretty chill, and just let me move in without even paying until I had the money. Dude even picked me up from the airport and moved me right in. It was kind of a rip-off for a room, but it was furnished, and I wasn't going to be in a position to buy furniture for months, so it worked out for both of us for 6 months or so.

I do wonder... At what point does this start to impact who can and can't even move to your area for work? Have we already reached that point?

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Reminds me when I moved to boston for a job as a young grad. Found a room available for rent on craigslist for $400 in a 2 floor apartment. Half way through living there, someone bought the vacant apartment downstairs and turns out the room I was staying in was owned by the downstairs people so I had to change rooms.

I think there's always a way to make these moves work. You just need to take a risk and be ready to suffer.

Easy fix, the department of defense has been doing it for years in Southwest DC.

Just build corporate housing.

Then we can have little Amazon towns where all your needs are met and everyone lives in perfect harmony in downtown San Fransisco.

Could even include Amazon store credits in the compensation package!*

* Non-transferrable, no cash value, forfeit upon separation, taxes on items purchased with credits must still be paid in USD by user

Toss in a robot that folds laundry and I'm in

As long as "no cash value" means they don't get summed in topline total comp, and that they can't be used to circumvent minimum wage, I don't see an obvious problem.

If it's a bad offer, it's a bad offer. If there aren't enough good offers, forbidding a weird benefit probably won't fix that anyway.

As long as they stick to housing it could be an improvement over the status quo.

Vertical integration isn't that unethical if you religiously stick to only integrating what would otherwise suck.

Yes, then we can build a company store where the slav... er, "employees" can shop and discuss how to be more productive on their projects!

You're so close to realizing the point but the difference is between a dystopian future and a future worth living.

Corporate housing, and worker housing in general, is what we're bouldering towards. The only way to extract further wealth from most of the population is for them not to own anything. It's the Western equivalent of South Asian brick kilns.

What we need instead is social housing like Vienna [1]. Americans in particular always associate such thing with ghettoes and Section 8.

And here's another problem: US corporations already keep employees and pay them less with the fear of losing health insurance. That's why the system exists. How much worse would it be if it's also your housing you'll lose?

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41VJudBdYXY&t=242s

It's a joke my friend. You should try to take things less seriously.

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