The artificial islands are in response to the US holding the first island chain [1]. Without a foothold in the South China Sea, China's military and economic access to the outside world is at the mercy of the US. This is the same reason you see so much Chinese interest in Burma — unbridled Indian Ocean ports [2].
Van rental is $40/day. Leaves a budget of $60/day for fuel, food and fun. Quite easy if you prepare most meals yourself and limit purchases that are prohibitively expensive in Australia, e.g. alcohol, cigarettes, taxis, restaurants, etc.
Seems ingenuous to compare digital nomads that are flying around the world several times a year to commuters who never take vacations or fly for business.
Both countries are still incredibly culturally significant, they've just traded their authenticity for whatever tricks draw dollars.
Thailand for example has been a hedonistic paradise for several decades. Full moon parties, rampant prostitution and cheap surgery. I'm guessing you've never been to Koh Phangan, Patong Road or Pattaya if you think it's the digital nomads destroying Thailand.
That is Roam's entire value add. The large majority of digital nomads are looking to find likeminded individuals with the same constraints in the same foreign city as they are. Similar to hostels when backpacking.
If you want to be integrated into the communities of whom your traveling you want to be crashing on their couches or in the very least renting a local Airbnb.
Neither Portugal or Thailand have been authentic cultural destinations in decades. What you see as "gentrification", they see as "progress" and a prerequisite to future tourist dollars.
Borneo, Myanmar and rural Cambodia are a few hours at most from Bangkok. The Balkans and eastern Europe are also only a couple of hours by plane from Lisbon. Next to zero digital nomads, bloggers or "YouTube creators".
Europe does not value software or developers anywhere near the levels the US does. Other developed economies e.g, Australia, Canada and Singapore are closer to the US but still trail behind.
The enormous value that the technology provides is anonymous, distributed consensus. It enables digital asset ownership. It enables self-organising permissionless networks. It enables humans to organise and transact without any central authority for the first time. That's the real value.
Taxis are only quick in the UK because everyone else is using public transport.
In any undeveloped capital you're forced to use a taxi (or unregulated alternative) to travel any significant distance. Getting anywhere can take hours (travelling at 5km/h is common), is dangerous and uncomfortable (AC is not even ubiquitous in 40c heat).
It's not unrelated, to quote your original comment:
> If you're a white male conservative Google engineer who feels oppressed and leaks such details, maybe the best thing for you to do is question your belief system that's so warped that you've managed to convince yourself that that's OK. Because it isn't.
Here you are implying that white male conservative Google engineers who leak such details should question their warped belief system, yet you're excusing others who presumably aren't white male conservatives who have done exactly the same thing.
Sure it can, if a vegetarian friend of yours said "If you want to increase your health remove all the disgusting meat from your diet", would you read that as them saying that all meat is disgusting or just the occasional piece?
I believe the original text was "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted white men" — this can be read as either all the white men at Google are bigots, or that Google should only fire bigots if they are a white male.
Highlighting race and gender when making such a statement is completely unnecessary, e.g. imagine the outcry if someone had said "If you want to increase diversity at Google fire all the bigoted black women".
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_of_Pearls_(Indian_Ocean...