The Death of Crowdsourcing (and Why I Built My Own Tools Instead)
- Caesar Sedek
- Oct 1
- 4 min read
My not-so-gentle manifesto on Facebook advice, AI regurgitation, and why I’d rather build than bullshit.
For the past year I’ve been watching the Elective Residency Visa (ERV) and Italy expat Facebook groups with the kind of morbid fascination you reserve for slow-motion train wrecks. I joined to contribute, to answer questions, and to trade war stories with people going through the same bureaucratic gauntlet. For a while, it worked. The advice wasn’t always perfect, but it was human.
Then things started to change.
The same questions kept popping up on repeat: What documents do I need for the ERV? How long does the permesso take? Where should I retire in Italy? Fair questions, but they’ve been asked and answered thousands of times. Instead of searching, people just post again. That’s when the “helpers” appear:
A moderator, or a well-meaning retiree, jumps in with advice that was true ten years ago from a consulate on the opposite side of the world.
Someone else posts an answer that looks suspiciously polished. No typos, no personality, just neat little paragraphs that read like a textbook.
And now, more and more, people don’t even hide it: “I asked GPT and that’s what it told me.”
At that point… WTF is the point?
If you’re going to ask a question and then accept an AI-generated answer anyway, why not just cut out the middleman and ask the AI yourself? You’ll get a fresher, more accurate answer—often with sources—without relying on a stranger to copy-paste it into Facebook and pretend it’s their contribution.
Crowdsourcing used to mean something. Real people shared what worked and what didn’t, usually with colorful side notes about how they almost lost their minds at the Questura or how their consulate clerk insisted on a middle name being typed exactly in 12-point Times New Roman. It was messy, it was flawed, but it was human.
Now? It’s stale anecdotes mixed with regurgitated AI output. That’s not community. That’s noise.
Why I Stopped Giving Away Free Advice
Here’s the kicker: people in those same groups often say, “You don’t need to pay for advice—just ask here.” Maybe that was true once. But today, you’re either getting outdated opinions with nothing to back them up, or a recycled AI answer.
So I’ve stepped back. Instead of pouring hours into Facebook threads, I’ve restructured how I help people.
I built Visto Facile: ERV Navigator —an all-in-one Swiss Army knife for anyone trying to navigate the Elective Residency Visa. It pulls in live data directly from consulates so you’re not relying on “ancient lore” about what worked for someone five years ago. Are there still nuances and exceptions? Of course. But at least you’re starting with actual sources of truth, not whispers passed around like an expat game of telephone.
It’s currently being tested by dozens of willing (and often brutally honest) people who signed up because they wanted something different. And yes—it has bugs right now. I haven’t thought of every single thing I could have (I’m human), but once it’s been through that kind of brutal beating, it’s going to be solid. It will help people. Will it be free? There’ll be a freemium version, sure. But the good stuff, the infrastructure, the live integrations, the reporting and piece of mind? That costs real money. And honestly, if you’re moving your entire life abroad, selling your home, and counting beans in your Social Security statement, isn’t getting it right worth a few bucks?
If you want to find out when Visto Facile goes live, sign up here to be one of the first to know.
And About Those 7% Towns…
Another hotbed of recycled advice: the 7% flat-tax groups. The questions are good, the community is lively—but when it comes to actually choosing a town? The best you get is someone pointing to a static Google Map (which I created and posted for free over a year ago.) That map still gets hundreds of hits every month. And that’s fine—it shows all 3,000+ towns. Go nuts. Fetch away.
But here’s where the “why should anyone charge for this?” crowd comes out of the woodwork. The anonymous grumblers who think lists and tools just appear out of thin air.
Let me be clear: if you want to dig through ISTAT CSV and JSON files, filter by population, eligibility, and tax codes, then write scripts to fetch data about hospitals, train stations, airports, and everything else—go for it. No one is stopping you. That’s literally how I built my database. But it takes time, technical skills, and money. Server hosting isn’t free. APIs cost money. My espresso and wine habit costs money.
So yes, I charge $19 a month for a tool that lets you make sense of the data instead of staring at a spreadsheet dump or a map of 3,000+ towns. If that feels outrageous, you’re welcome to do your own homework with raw files. Just don’t complain that someone else packaged it into something usable.
And if you’re curious about where the 7% flat tax might actually work for you, check out the Escape Map: 7% Edition — a live, data-driven tool that makes sense of 3,000+ towns so you don’t have to.
The Point
Crowdsourcing had its moment. But between AI answers, people openly admitting “I just asked GPT”, and outdated “back in my day” advice, Facebook groups just aren’t where the real answers live anymore.
And look—I’m not bitching or complaining. Okay, maybe a little. But when you spend hours researching, building databases, paying for back-end services, and catching grief from your wife for staying up past midnight coding the damn thing, only to have people say, “You can find that online for free”—sure, no one’s twisting your arm.
I’ve just finally realized the value of what I’m doing. I take the raw, messy, scattered information and turn it into something people can actually use. For the folks scratching their heads asking, “Why isn’t this simpler? Where can I get real help?”—that’s exactly the gap I’m filling.
If you want timeless anecdotes, Facebook is still there. If you want clarity and structure, well—there’s a better way now.
You’ve heard the noise in the groups. Here’s the signal.
The Escape Map: 7% Edition isn’t another static list — it’s a live, interactive tool built from the ground up so you can actually make sense of 3,000+ towns. No guesswork. No “ancient lore.”
And if you're ready to make your dream a reality - let me help you plan your scouting trip:
Comments