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Is forcibly killed off by companies who hate their employees
Yeah, that's a trash headline. This isn't something that's just happening from impersonal natural effects, it's management trying to kill it. And at least as of March, 35% of workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home. This isn't a "last gasp for WFH", it's a few big Silicon Valley employers trying to reassert control and their friends in the business media joining the cause.
I know I'll never go back to an office and a lot of other WFH employees don't even live near their companies anymore. Good luck retaining top talent if you treat them like children in need of supervision.
They don't hate them, they just don't consider them. Production is not at risk, they are. They are losing control and it is worth it to them to lose people to gain back the control. Above all else, even money they want power.
Once you have enough money to meet your needs, all money is is power.
When the US government broke up the oil companies with an antitrust suit the owners were worth more than before because the companies were valued higher individually. It was the best for everyone but the owners wanted power not more money and value. Consolidation hurts everyone.
It's just managers terrified people will realize they have 0 value.
Senior Management make these decisions, if not C suite. They have a lot to do but these decisions come down to not letting business interests falter by dropping commercial rents and not having employees having too much convenience.
Commercial rent is absolutely a huge reason. However, you're missing something. It's an easy way to get rid of a certain percentage of folks. A lot of MBAs, and by extension a lot of the C-Suite, act like employees are perfectly spherical and operate in a vacuum. So if they need to shrink their workforce by X% it doesn't matter which employees leave.
Unfortunately for the employers the high performers are generally (not always) the ones with more options.
It's another layoff.
I don’t think it will be that cut and dry.
A huge number of tech companies are still and/or will always be fully remote.
Over time, the big pay checks that Meta and Google and Apple are offering will be overshadowed by the possibilities of remote work done right (as opposed to simply working as you are in the office but from home).
There are lots of smart, talented folks out there willing to take a pay cut to gain back the time that office culture can waste, commuting first of all.
Sure there are challenges to the sense of togetherness that can help build great teams, but plenty of remote-only organizations make the time and space to foster that appropriately.
Ultimately, I think we’ll find that the eventual competitors to the MAANG-like behemoths emerge out of smart, well designed, remote-first organizations. Though I think Netflix is largely remote - at least for the engineers I know who work there.