and I'm here to say that at least in the short run, this could maybe be a good thing. Thailand is a strange place as far as living here long-term is concerned because they clearly actually do want people to try to do that because they offer so many options for people to do so. They are one of the few countries in this part of the world that has a genuine retirement visa that at least on paper is easily obtained and a lot of people actually do pursue it.
After a while though the enthusiasm among these people that get this visa tends to wane because many folks, especially those that are not extremely wealthy, tend to start to get frustrated at how disrespectful the authorities are towards them when they are going in to renew their visas.
I can speak to this level of disrespect personally even though I am twenty years away from retirement age: The stoic people in Immigration just seem to have a chip on their shoulder towards the world in general and tend to be as rude to everyone as they possibly can.
src
Then there is also the situation where when you are going into immigration for any visa extension reason, the official seem to be on some sort of witchhunt for anyone that is trying to scam their way into a visa. This is the case with everyone that I know that has a long-term visa. You are treated like you are a criminal until you prove otherwise and then when there is no question that you are legitimate they almost throw your passport back and you in defeat because they didn't bust you doing something that you were never doing.
There are ways to make this treatment go away of course: money under the table. Bribes are just so common in Thailand that this method of being mean to everyone is a sort of way to convince them to offer up some money for better treatment and once you do decide to give them some money on the side all of a sudden they become cheerful and helpful. While it is a bit more covert now than it used to be, they aren't even very secretive about this illegal act because who is going to bust them? It's not like there is any internal affairs in this country.
So lately, a lot of my friends, especially the ones that you would consider to be digital nomads such as people that work online doing whatever, get really fed up with the mistreatment and now they are relocating to places nearby. The two countries that they are relocating to the most are Vietnam and Malaysia. Both of these countries have easy visa procedures and you are not harassed by officials when you stay there long-term. This is what I have heard from a lot of people and the internet isn't awash with people reporting about corruption inside of Immigration the way it is here.
I know a few people that have moved to both countries and have now been there for years that explain that it is like "night and day" as far as how immigration treats them is concerned. They still have to leave the country every now and then to renew visas, but they aren't grilled about "why you stay here too long!???" the way that you are in Thailand.
Thailand is probably still a long ways ahead of any other country than these two as far as how many actual expats there are in total but if life has taught me anything about how Thailand operates it is that they government will only realize that there is a problem here once it is too late.
It used to be that Thailand and Chiang Mai in particular, was kind of seen as one of the top destinations for digital nomads out of any place on earth. Now people talk about Kuala Lumpur, and Hanoi as such. I meet very few digital nomads in Chiang Mai these days that are here for the long haul and even those that are here in that capacity are normally singing a different tune after they have to go in for their annual renewal. By year 3 they are convinced they are just going to leave rather than face the ever-changing rules, bribes, and attitude.
But also, I think that at least for now, this trend could be a good thing because Thailand always seems to feel as though there are too many of us pesky expats here and once a certain percentage of us take off never to return and being replaced by nobody, perhaps some actual reform could take place at Immigration to accommodate those of us that are legally staying here and have no ulterior motives.