I don't know much about South Korea's immigration policies, but why should this specific program accommodate permanent immigration? This visa is the opposite of a worker visa for a person that may want to become a permanent resident in the future - its purpose is to let someone live on their land while still being considered a citizen of their origin country for all other purposes. I'm guessing that there are better visa options out there for people who want to live and work in SK full-time.

In most countries if you stay long enough and qualify then you become a permanent resident.

The sneaky trick that SK is doing with its maximum term of 2 years is ensuring that no one on this arrangement will be eligible (which apparently requires residing there for 5 years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_South_Korea).

This makes the program entirely pointless for intended audience, ie. people dead set on living in South Korea (not just have fun for a year).

Or, more likely, people will switch to a different visa type if they’re looking to do more years? I’m not sure any of this counts as a “sneaky trick”

Of course and that's exactly the point. Other visa types require things like employment in SK or being Korean, things nomad visa is supposed to avoid

People can’t simply decide to move to the US, Australia and UK and spend the rest of their lives there.

The same applies to South Korea. You want to live there, you need to apply for a visa like everyone else.

Yeah, his point is that he isn't going to do it with those restrictions. Most of these startup visas have all these restrictions. And everyone is always like "yeah, you need to play by the rules like everyone else" and shit like that, but in the end it's just people saying "I'm not buying what you're offering" and then the government just sits there not having achieved whatever objective it set out to do with this stuff.

It's an asymmetric relationship. The nomad doesn't care if SK runs this program. But SK does care if people don't come.

> It's an asymmetric relationship. The nomad doesn't care if SK runs this program. But SK does care if people don't come.

Unfortunately, they don't particularly care. The whole driver behind this program is optics. Both to domestic voters "Look at how global and modern the current government is and how much we're doing", as well as to international headline-readers "Look at how progressive Korea is".

Ah, I see. In that case, I suppose no one really cares where it goes. S Korea's loss, in my opinion. They're the ones whose population will shrink by half every half-century from now.

> They're the ones whose population will shrink by half every half-century from now.

How is that a loss?

I think people are realising that the 'grow your way to success' model doesn't work for countries any more, unless you're the US, which is in a fairly unique position simply due to having a geography that no other country shares.

The immediate problems are likely to be that they will lose the ability to sustain welfare for their non-productive population (the elderly, children, disabled, etc.). The long-term problems are likely to be that they will fail to protect their borders eventually since they can't field a sufficiently large fighting force.

But perhaps they have another path. I guess it's good to have someone else run that experiment. We can observe and duplicate or avoid.

>We can observe and duplicate or avoid.

If you're the US, you can't. The US never learns from others' example: there's many examples of things other developed nations do far better than the US, but the US refuses to learn from their example. The US only makes big changes when it's their own idea, not because they saw it working well someplace else. Some examples: healthcare, the metric system, high-speed or even regular passenger rail, walkable cities, good zoning laws, etc.

Every rich country is currently undergoing a fertility crisis that will become an underpopulation crisis. South Korea's is particularly acute. There are various root causes and long-term fixes for this, but the only short-term fix is to open your country to immigration. This is part of why the US hasn't actually noticed its low fertility: we are a very desirable country to live in and we have legal paths to immigration that aren't predicated on signifiers of capital wealth. South Korea arguably has the desirability[0], but their immigration system is far more selective.

The kinds of optics South Korea can buy from virtue-signalling, but not actually implementing, progressive immigration policy are limited. You can't clickbait immigration law.

[0] Complicating South Korean immigration desirability are two competing factors:

- People from poorer countries tend to not be picky about what country will give them a visa, but,

- South Korea, like Japan[1] has racism and sexism problems that uniquely impacts immigrants from southeast Asia

[1] Korean and Japanese nationalists really hate it when you compare the two countries.

> So I've got to prove I make $70k a year, and then put down a $7500 deposit on a small apartment that costs me $1800 a month

Nice, <5 years old, fully furnished, two-bed room apartments in central, well-connected areas of Seoul are <$1000 per month.

And that's places that are suitable for 2 people to live in - the large majority of digital nomads live on their own, in which case it's even cheaper.

You must be aware of a different Seoul then I am. I've looked at moving there and asked my Korean friends. "Fully furnished, two-bed room apartments in central, well-connected areas of Seoul are <$1000 per month" does not jibe with anything I have seen, ever. Please send me the property link because I'm obviously looking in the wrong place.

I've replied to the person below you with links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39026946

The last one is 2 bedrooms for about $1000/month, fully furnished. Sure, it's stretching it, but a world of difference with your claim of $1800 for a small apartment in the context of digital nomads.

As someone who tried to find a suitable sub-$1000 rent in Seoul, I call your claim. Maybe you can provide online listings to counter?

Sure, as I live in such a place myself, and I got the contract last year. Since then housing prices have fallen in Seoul.

- Random building here https://fin.land.naver.com/articles/2402864693 Last March, 2 contracts at 2,000/63 and 2,000/80 respectively.

Still too high of a deposit? https://fin.land.naver.com/articles/2402982978 @ 1,000/90, building is less than 2 years old.

Need 2 bedrooms? Here: https://fin.land.naver.com/articles/2356138769

I don't think digital nomad visas are about demographics. This provides a legal way for people to do something that's already happening in many of these countries, so that's a good thing.

Further, I think these countries are aware that people would immigrate given the chance. They simply don't want the immigrants, and it's not really your place to demand they take them.

What's wrong with a country having its population getting lower in an overpopulated continent? South Korea is a highly educated and developed country and most families are very well happy with a single child.

With the advancement of technology, robotics, AI and so on I don't see how manpower is going to be absolutely necessary in the future either.

If the problem is retirement and how to finance it, don't worry, alternative ways exist to fix that, fearmongering isn't necessary.

No, you are not a "racial supremacist" if your goal is to keep social peace and prevent the society you live in to crumble with millions of individuals who don't share the same values as you. Death to the merchants.

If the apartment is 1800$ a month, the deposit will be more like 15000$

From memory, you get this back at the end and need to keep paying rent each month. You can't 'spend' the deposit like some countries allow.

Shouldn't rich people be able to get hassle free visas? Why ban them from your country if they just want to live there and spend their money, regardless of whether they earn some more or not?

Just prove you have 100k and you get to stay this many days.

This is the hassle free rich people visa version of South Korea. Prove you earn $XXXXXX, leave $XXXXXX deposit, buy $XXXXX insurance = get a golden visa for two years, then get the hell out.

It's not to accommodate people who might actually want to live there (for whatever crazy reason)

But that means you need to have a job. Which many rich people don't really need or have.

I think many top percenters have income without tradjob, stuff like investment dividends and all that.

> USA (if you get off H1B).

Funny joke. Everybody laughs.