Free Audiobooks/Adios Selina/Remote Work Saves the Day
Nomadico issue #115
Selina Going Under
First it was WeWork that imploded, now it’s Selina’s turn. Despite the massive move to remote work that happened the past few years, global co-living chain Selina is in insolvency now after failing to make debt payments. As often happens when a quest for growth pushes aside everything else, setbacks snowballed into a collapse when interest rates went up. “The company has lost almost all of its value since going public in December 2021 with a $1.2 billion valuation.” Although their subscription model was compelling for globetrotting nomads, apparently not enough to keep them afloat.
Free Public Domain Audiobooks
In cheerier news, public domain books that you could already read for free are available in free audiobook versions as well. More than 70,000 titles are up now through the Listenly platform. Get schooled on your next road trip with titles from the likes of Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad, but also newer voluntary public domain titles from the likes of Paul Graham. The even have a “banned books” category for classics that some school board or another has deemed too dangerous for young minds.
Germany Regains the “King of Hops” Title
Here’s something for the Europeans to cheer about. After nine years of trailing the USA in hops production for beer, Germany has regained its crown as the world’s #1 producer, with 20,300 hectares of land devoted to the crop. According to the German Tourism Board, there are more than 1,500 breweries in Germany and the average person living there drinks 95 liters of the beverage per year. Here’s more from them on their own craft beer scene.
Did Remote Work Save the U.S. Economy?
Economists have been scratching their heads at how the U.S. defied all predictions and managed to rev up the economy post-COVID while also keeping unemployment low and pushing inflation down. This defies all the models for what should have happened (and what mostly did happen in other countries). A new academic working paper proposes that the answer is…remote work. The USA has the highest percentage of remote workers as a portion of the total labor force and the author points to this as a big factor in why the U.S. economy has trounced most others. The cheers come with a downside though: the reason this worked is that the remote workers were willing to accept smaller pay increases as they got rid of costs for commuting and child care.
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Digital nomading in the the classic sense of changing countries every few months is not as appealing as it seems. Living in hotel rooms, never staying long enough to learn the culture, not being able to establish social and physical health routines, limited dating options, etc are just a few reasons why this lifestyle has a dark side and unsustainable in the long term, even if your Instagram profile makes it look like you're living the dream. The real benefits come not only from getting out of your home country, but also finding a way to stay in a new country as a long term expat.
It doesn't seem like whoever wrote the blurb on Listenly has actually visited the site, because it's very inaccurate. Listenly actually lists audiobooks from Project Gutenberg -- that really are free to listen to if you go to Project Gutenberg directly -- but instead tries to trick the user into paying to "generate audio" for each book. Try to listen to the chapters and you'll get a message telling you that you have to buy the book before you can listen to it. So no, Listenly is not a source of free audiobooks; that would be Librivox and Project Gutenberg. Listenly is just trying to charge people for what has been free at these nonprofit projects for many, many years.