[leononame]

I live in what's not exactly a digital nomad hotspot, but they do come. You pay 150€/month for a coworking space in a city where some people pay 300-400€/month rent. These digital nomads come here, pay absurd amounts of rent without blinking an eye.

And the tax thing is not a bogus argument. When people only pay taxes indirectly, they are tourists. Digital nomads pay _much_ less tax overall than other people, because people who pay income tax pay indirect taxes as well. If the digital nomads don't come, they also wouldn't raise rent and café prices for everyone around them. You come here, register yourself as a freelancer and pay income tax? You're very welcome in my book. But if you come to the country to leech off its cheap prices but don't pay income tax, you can go back where you came from.

We bring in millions of poor immigrants for various reasons: It's the human thing to do, these immigrants do cheap and hard labor that a lot of natives won't do (think construction, food delivery, etc.) and as such even provide benefits to us.

Digital Nomads mostly aren't immigrants. They come for a limited time, don't provide much to the local economy outside spending some money (and even then it's not that much because a lot of them come to cheap countries to live for cheap and save money) and then leave again. It's not really comparable.

[littlecranky67]

> When people only pay taxes indirectly, they are tourists. Digital nomads pay _much_ less tax overall than other people, because people who pay income tax pay indirect taxes as well

Bad argument, as the alternative is the DN (just as the tourist) simply not coming to the island. If a DN spends 2000€ a month, that is 2000€ taxable income for someone else. If the DN doesn't come someone else makes 2000€ less of income. This does not compare to people living in the place, as they are there no matter what. Every cent of foreign money flowing into your economy ON TOP is a bonus. It is only bad if it removes someone else who would spend that money, but that is not the case.

And if you would argue that the economy does not need more foreign money and you do not want productivity and wealth increase and have stay things as they are, you are advocating socalism - look at cuba, venezuela or argentina how that worked out.

[leononame]

Well, that only counts if you see the DN as a net positive. Similar to tourists, a lot of people see DN as a net negative because they spend some money, sure, but they also raise rent and hospitality prices. This can harm local communities and economies because it may benefit few people over many or change where people have to go live.

Places relying on tourism as economic activity are very susceptible to economic crisis and it can even go as far as suppressing generation of jobs in other sectors and people leaving because you only find jobs in tourism or you can't afford to live in the city because Digital Nomads live there already. This is obviously exaggerated to make a point, but I think the point still stands in smaller scale.

Foreign money flowing in does not need to be a bonus. DN have the potential to change the microeconomy and in ways that affect your macroeconomy much more than just money flowing in.

Take a place like Barcelona, a famous example for people not being able to live there anymore due to high prices. On top of that, a lot of digital nomads don't interact much with local culture. When people start leaving, is the influx of DN money really still a net positive? Especially considering some of them don't even pay income tax?

I don't want to demonize immigration, but people moving somewhere and treating it like a cheaper version of their hometown is not a positive in any way, culturally or economically.

I am not arguing for socialism by saying that people coming and spending some money (not even that much) is not a sustainable way to do economy. I've got no problem with foreign investors building things that are actually valuable to the economy by building up industry, creating jobs or whatever. Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina have a whole lot of different problems and the reasons they are in the positions they are are much more nuanced than "socialism bad".