In 2019, I reacted to a social-media wavelet about PodShare, a modern take on the flophouse that wanted $1,200 a month for a sitting-height cubicle with a bed in it. I was equally scornful of the triumphalist techbros pushing this thing, the godawful San Francisco housing market that made $1,200 for a bed sound almost reasonable, and the chattering masses on Twitter who I strongly suspected were using PodShare as a pretext for thinly veiled class warfare.

What a difference a few years makes.

While the rents in San Francisco are still nosebleed-inducingly high, the price of a Brownstone Shared Housing “pod” is reportedly a “mere” $700. While there’s been a bit of a regulatory saga, there has been no widespread outrage. And the one story that cropped up in my algo-feeds barely touched on the Brownstone co-founder’s farcical idea to franchise… I’m not even sure what he’s planning to franchise. The concept of sleeping pods? The applicant pool he claims to have? The “Brownstone” brand name?

This is becoming normal. In a few years I’ll probably be considered middle-class for living in an efficiency with its own bathroom… assuming I still am.