Post-Covid?
Apr. 25th, 2020 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisThe pandemic has shown a lot of things we were told were utter bullshit.
Our Internet and cell phone providers all claimed bandwidth was such a limited resource that they had no choice but to throttle usage. Now the limits are lifted as a public service goodwill gesture.
We were told remote telework was impossible: people can't be trusted to work unless they're constantly supervised. High tech folks already knew that was bullshit, but now traditional industries & services are finding it's not as impossible as they thought. And a lot of workers have gotten a taste of it for the first time and aren't likely to give it up easily. Managers who refuse to permit any kind of remote work are dinosaurs.
Teaching can't possibly be done remotely. Oops, we've now demonstrated much of it can. Not all, to be sure, and there are some age groups which are easier than others, but departments which flatly refused to consider it last year are now embracing it.
Now I'm thinking about future years...
Does anyone still think that Internet access is not an essential utility, like electricity or running water?
If we're going to be keeping our distance from other workers, elevators are going to be problematic. Tall, dense office buildings are going to be a challenge, but smaller buildings with escalators & stairs have a built-in health advantage.
Businesses which embrace remote work won't need large centralized office space. Even if they retain an office for respectability, they wouldn't need a dedicated desk for every employee. This has already been a trend in some fields, but it might now explode into a much larger scale.
If larger numbers are working remotely, do we need the proposed expansions to the beltway and I270 corridor near us? Currently both are flowing at a fraction of their pre-covid levels. Ending the lockdown will bring the load back up again, but if we keep telecommuting at scale, do we need the extra lanes?
We've had a lot of shortages in selected items recently. A large part was hoarding, but a large part was also imbalanced production: producers were supplying a particular mix of office vs domestic versions of their stuff, but needed time to change the ratio when the world changed. We're now rebalancing, but it may need to change quickly again.
Brick-and-mortar stores were already in trouble, but it's even harder now.
Restaurants are problematic. If there are fewer people congregating in large numbers, large (and expensive) dining rooms are no longer cost-effective, esp if there are much smaller lunchtime crowds in concentrated downtown areas thanks to increased remote work. We've always had small take-away shops and food trucks, but we may see more gourmet options as upscale restaurants scale back in-house dining in favour of take-away.
And then there's over-capacity in car manufacturing, as well as used car lots. And insurance will have to change dramatically if there are fewer cars driving vastly fewer miles: work commuting is the bulk of the miles most people put on their vehicles.
Elementary schools are probably still a good thing: the young have a difficulty enough time with focus, and lordy, teaching is hard work which needs trained professionals. But college & university campuses may want to re-think some of their capital budget items: do they need more residences and class rooms if the students are remote?
What will a remote student body do to sports recruiting? I can't wait to find out.
Shopping malls were in decline in so many areas around the country. They're now dead in a ditch in those areas. It will be interesting to see if they can rebound.
Rental car agencies, travel agencies, hotels, Lyft, Uber, Air BnB, and airlines are all in deep trouble. And I'm ok with nearly all of them going belly-up. Dinosaurs have to die off so something new can take their place, and we have huge over-capacity with a concentration of ownership in the hands of bad business managers.
Large stadium events are going to be pandemic hotspots: there is no way to social-distance in such an environment. Professional sports might still make a go of it, since their big dollars come from the television rights & merchandise rather than ticket sales. But when these big, heavily gov't subsidized structures need to be upgraded or replaced, it's going to be a tough sell to get limited public dollars for yet another massive subsidy/bailout.
I'll add more as I think of them, but I think it is beyond doubt that the future is going to look very different soon.
Our Internet and cell phone providers all claimed bandwidth was such a limited resource that they had no choice but to throttle usage. Now the limits are lifted as a public service goodwill gesture.
We were told remote telework was impossible: people can't be trusted to work unless they're constantly supervised. High tech folks already knew that was bullshit, but now traditional industries & services are finding it's not as impossible as they thought. And a lot of workers have gotten a taste of it for the first time and aren't likely to give it up easily. Managers who refuse to permit any kind of remote work are dinosaurs.
Teaching can't possibly be done remotely. Oops, we've now demonstrated much of it can. Not all, to be sure, and there are some age groups which are easier than others, but departments which flatly refused to consider it last year are now embracing it.
Now I'm thinking about future years...
Does anyone still think that Internet access is not an essential utility, like electricity or running water?
If we're going to be keeping our distance from other workers, elevators are going to be problematic. Tall, dense office buildings are going to be a challenge, but smaller buildings with escalators & stairs have a built-in health advantage.
Businesses which embrace remote work won't need large centralized office space. Even if they retain an office for respectability, they wouldn't need a dedicated desk for every employee. This has already been a trend in some fields, but it might now explode into a much larger scale.
If larger numbers are working remotely, do we need the proposed expansions to the beltway and I270 corridor near us? Currently both are flowing at a fraction of their pre-covid levels. Ending the lockdown will bring the load back up again, but if we keep telecommuting at scale, do we need the extra lanes?
We've had a lot of shortages in selected items recently. A large part was hoarding, but a large part was also imbalanced production: producers were supplying a particular mix of office vs domestic versions of their stuff, but needed time to change the ratio when the world changed. We're now rebalancing, but it may need to change quickly again.
Brick-and-mortar stores were already in trouble, but it's even harder now.
Restaurants are problematic. If there are fewer people congregating in large numbers, large (and expensive) dining rooms are no longer cost-effective, esp if there are much smaller lunchtime crowds in concentrated downtown areas thanks to increased remote work. We've always had small take-away shops and food trucks, but we may see more gourmet options as upscale restaurants scale back in-house dining in favour of take-away.
And then there's over-capacity in car manufacturing, as well as used car lots. And insurance will have to change dramatically if there are fewer cars driving vastly fewer miles: work commuting is the bulk of the miles most people put on their vehicles.
Elementary schools are probably still a good thing: the young have a difficulty enough time with focus, and lordy, teaching is hard work which needs trained professionals. But college & university campuses may want to re-think some of their capital budget items: do they need more residences and class rooms if the students are remote?
What will a remote student body do to sports recruiting? I can't wait to find out.
Shopping malls were in decline in so many areas around the country. They're now dead in a ditch in those areas. It will be interesting to see if they can rebound.
Rental car agencies, travel agencies, hotels, Lyft, Uber, Air BnB, and airlines are all in deep trouble. And I'm ok with nearly all of them going belly-up. Dinosaurs have to die off so something new can take their place, and we have huge over-capacity with a concentration of ownership in the hands of bad business managers.
Large stadium events are going to be pandemic hotspots: there is no way to social-distance in such an environment. Professional sports might still make a go of it, since their big dollars come from the television rights & merchandise rather than ticket sales. But when these big, heavily gov't subsidized structures need to be upgraded or replaced, it's going to be a tough sell to get limited public dollars for yet another massive subsidy/bailout.
I'll add more as I think of them, but I think it is beyond doubt that the future is going to look very different soon.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-27 04:01 am (UTC)Now, for social distancing, those private offices would be better. I'm so glad I'm retired, and it's not my problem any more.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-27 06:48 am (UTC)Neither of us has made any plans for anything other than Denver for the entire year. Our last RV trip ended 3/15; we scurried home along with many thousands of others on I-10 from the Arizona campground we were enjoying. Comparable to your trips to the resort in WV, I"m thinking, since you can't make any plans to go there either.
We have a 2 week cruise booked for next March, from Buenos Aires to Santiago. Even that feels a little iffy, but our deposits and prepays can be refunded until December. Danny hasn't done any real research yet in getting to and from the cruise, along with extra tourist-on-shore days, so he's not feeling it yet, either.
All the things you mentioned, I agree with in concept.
My crystal ball is also not seeing anything like a real return to 'normal' until next year.