> An online freelancer with a low cost of living can live decently.
Eastern European and freelancer here. I can do all that freelance work for much cheaper than any American from a dying coal town. Furthermore, we Eastern European freelancers generally tend to be university educated, are used to working in a global cross-cultural marketplace, and we have a large pool of local talent we can subcontract work out to and thus grow our business. Anyone in rural America who now starts trying to make it in freelancing is likely to lose out to us.
On the other hand, one thing we cannot do – due to our foreign passports – is easily move to a large American city. So, I think moving to the cities is a better option for someone in a dying coal town than staying there and hoping for success in the digital economy.
An average middle class salary in my country would be around 1000€/month. That provides for a pretty good life in my country. In the USA, on the other hand, that annual income would be below the poverty level. The cost of fiber internet, electricity and gas is much cheaper in Eastern Europe than the horrible prices I have seen quoted for North America.
For what it’s worth, I am now a digital nomad. I don’t stay in my country on that salary, I travel among countries that are even cheaper. Someone who intends on staying in their dying coal town in Appalachia does not have that option.
If it costs $5,000 - 10,000 more to hire an American, so be it. The company gets an individual of native culture, native English speaker and a fellow countryman. Plus they are at least within 3 hours based on time-zone - minus Alaska and Hawaii.
So be it to who? The simple phenomenon of outsourcing shows that getting a "fellow countryman" isn't worth such a drastically higher cost to many clients. Yes, hiring people from the Indian subcontinent has burned many clients, but after getting burned they are often more likely to look towards Eastern Europe, where we are "close enough", than to hire North Americans at that much higher cost.
Time zone isn't so important, inasmuch as many freelancers in Europe are happy to adapt to North American hours.
Eastern European and freelancer here. I can do all that freelance work for much cheaper than any American from a dying coal town. Furthermore, we Eastern European freelancers generally tend to be university educated, are used to working in a global cross-cultural marketplace, and we have a large pool of local talent we can subcontract work out to and thus grow our business. Anyone in rural America who now starts trying to make it in freelancing is likely to lose out to us.
On the other hand, one thing we cannot do – due to our foreign passports – is easily move to a large American city. So, I think moving to the cities is a better option for someone in a dying coal town than staying there and hoping for success in the digital economy.