Aside from the headline findings, one issue I address in my paper is the question of whether remote work will kill agglomeration. I say no, and I cite the existence of fried egg Twitter content-static.upwork.com/blog/uploads/s…
I can unpack this a little bit. Here are 3 components of agglomeration of big cities: 1) better matching, 2) within firm effects, 3) between firm effects
Better matching results from large labor markets, creating more opportunities. But it would be very easy for fully remote workers to reach the scale of the countries largest cities. Only a few percent of the workforce to be as big as San Francisco
So the potential for a very very big remote labor market is obvious. You also have better info in digital labor markets. On Upwork, we show past work, ratings, lots of info. Consider how dating websites have come to dominate that matching in our lives
Next is within firm effects. Here you have the spontaneous drop-in of a colleague, water cooler effects, etc. To me, this isn’t a huge concern because it’s fully internalized. Companies will know.
In addition, working remote first I can tell you there is still just as much spontaneity. Slack, quick video chats, extra time at the end of other meetings. Lots of spillover generating interactions.
Why I mention fried egg Twitter is because of the fear of public agglomeration effects outside the firm. This is a black box of agglomeration. Casual and productive encounters in the coffee shop, social circle, and local bar working on similar problems...
But if you can’t see how social media creates spontaneity and chance encounters and casual interactions with people working on similar problems... well, you probably aren’t seeing this tweet.
Social media creates big, distributed, and spontaneous communities of experts across so many fields and niches and hobbies (like fried egg Twitter). It’s hard to claim this falls short of seeing people in a bar or whatever public black box of agglomeration you want to posit
I don’t go into this in the paper, but another advantage is online expert communities are far less hierarchical & more open than traditional ones. Allows broader participation where quality of ideas and engagement determine whether you get heard, not an old boys network status
Anyway I think this is all pretty obvious and basic economics and I am continually shocked to be arguing uphill for these ideas against a strong status quo bias in favor of old fashioned agglomeration. Open your minds, and look around you.
Here is the paper again. Lots more in there. We need to broaden the conversation around remote work and stop making the same knee jerk very basic arguments content-static.upwork.com/blog/uploads/s…
