On the bright side, there's a huge opportunity for someone to sweep through all of this and just offer free concierge services for digital nomads. I met someone working on this, I imagine there are others. That will ultimately take the day when someone gets that formula right. Something more of the spirit of couch surfing.
I'm ranting. Anyways, if you can manage cheap rates at really cool pads, in a way that's better than just splitting an AirBnB with other nomads, then that is something pretty cool.
"Sign up for our newsletter!" pop-ups.
"Learn how I make money to travel using credit card affiliate links (spoiler alert: it's by writing articles about how I make money from credit card affiliate links)".
"Buy my awful book! Here's a crappy CG render of what it might look like if I had even bothered to on-demand print it!"
It's like all those "growth hacking" marketing sites that started popping up a few years ago. Or Mister Money Mustache, for that matter ("how I live free and cheap and don't even have a job! Spoiler alert: it's by already being kind of rich so I avoid most of the expenses and risk that poor people have, and in fact I work three part time jobs, one of which is this website, so that was simply a lie. Click my affiliate links!") I haven't read Timothy Ferriss, but I see him referenced all the time in relation to these sorts of things. Is he responsible for this explosion of cynical, manipulative, garbage websites that now infest the Internet, or is someone else to blame? The whole thing feels like Amway.
To sum up: speaking as someone on the outside of all this, I'm not sure throwing a few start-ups in to the mix could make the digital nomads' public online presence much scummier[1].
[1] NOT saying even a substantial fraction of people living this life are scummy, mind you!
[EDIT] Tim Ferris -> Timothy Ferriss
Thank you.