Hostels in 2019 vs. co-living spaces now - the vibe shift is real

Back when I first started nomading in 2019, I stayed in hostels all over Southeast Asia. Cheap beds (like $8 a night in Vietnam), shared bathrooms, and you'd meet people organically over a beer in the common room. Now I'm in a co-living space in Medellin for $650 a month and it's a totally different crowd. Everyone's on zoom calls all day, the kitchen has a scheduled cleaning rotation, and people treat it like a dorm for remote work instead of a place to actually hang out. I miss the chaos of hostels honestly. Has anyone else felt like the whole nomad scene got way more corporate since 2020?

2 comments

2 Comments

loganburns12d ago

Read a blog post calling it 'digital sharecropping' which honestly fits.

nathan54512d ago

Huh, wait. Is it really sharecropping though? Sharecropping was about people being forced to work someone else's land and getting screwed over. On these platforms we're choosing to post our stuff for free. I mean yeah the companies make money off our content and we get nothing, but nobody's forcing us to be here. It's more like we're all just volunteering our work for a corporation's profit.