Great if it works for you, but buddy I could never go back to having roommates, sharing a bathroom or a kitchen, or even having a shared wall with a neighbor. I like my privacy and security, and no, "my bedroom door closes" doesn't meet the bar.
Secondly (this is more a theory), having a roomie is often just too informal to settle on and enforce social contracts for public spaces.
Yeah man, I'll clean the dishes. (Never cleans the dishes).
Although in college, I used to have the apartment where people just showed up randomly and chilled / did homework / played a game for 10 mins and leave (or crash on the couch). They'd help clean the place, were free to leave some food in the fridge and such and were generally very respectful. Donate an N64 or a sound system to the cause.Turned out my roomie hated it and never said anything, but it worked well for me. I just don't like it when people feel like a 'guest' or I'm treated like a 'guest'. It's uncomfortable.
Nowadays it's rude (and time consuming) to just drop by and I rarely see my friends on weekdays. Then they offer me drinks and such and theres a weird formaility to it that I don't enjoy at all. I think we need a 'third place', effectively a community hangout where everyone feels they have some sort of shared ownership and you can also expect people to be there regularly. The closest example I've found is our local hackerspace, but the audience for that is somewhat limited.
Your living arrangements are what you make of it. I've lived in a 4000 sq foot home in the suburbs, and I've lived in a condo in a major metro (Chicago).
Nuts to possessions and competing on living space, I just want to spend time with good people.
This!
Your idea is awesome. But why restrict only to tech workers? At the least, you could let all digital workers stay?
The second problem is when you're at least somewhat introverted. There comes a time when I no longer want to spend time with people, even if they're good.
Over the last 20ish years I have gone from dorm life to living with a roommate to living with a girlfriend to living alone to renting a room in a house (twice) to living with a girlfriend to getting married to said girlfriend.
So many people don't even use a kitchen so I can see where being able to live very cheaply with the bare essentials can be very attractive to many.
I think we Americans will soon see the multi-generational household as more the norm, especially with the high cost of care for our elderly.