lol, this sounds even worse than working at the office.

I became remote worker to get rid of all that synchronous crap, to work at my own times etc. none of these constant "pop-in-for-a-question thing"s

If something is really important call me, otherwise email/chat is enough.

If youtube still had video replies, you could do something useful, with that I guess. But, alas.

I've long assumed that prior to HMDs taking off, we'd see people work with a video screen at the side extreme of their desk, showing a view of someone not physically adjacent to them, and the reverse for that colleague. So, you'd have a representation of a teammate beside you. Large LCDs are cheap. Connectivity is getting to the point that this wouldn't tax some office connections.

Has anyone tried it?

Obviously people could switch off the screen or the feed if they needed to make a private call, or if they were taking a lunch break.

People talk about Hangout windows and so on, but I think having something you can glance at but not have right in front of you would be a better representation of current offices.

This solves some peoples' problems at the expense of others.

A big attraction of remote work to me is that I don't have the feeling of being overlooked while "in the zone" (which tends to mean that "the zone" never really happens). Video might actually be worse in practise than an open office. Could turn it off, of course, but it's the kind of thing that could easily end up as a "not a team player" flag in the modern software world.

There are things like PukkaTeam[1] which go for snapshots rather than video. Less bandwidth and perhaps marginally less intrusive, but still means people are looking at you...

[1] https://www.pukkateam.com/features

Have you ever worked at a desk beside a colleague? From what I see in my office and that of clients, it's fairly common.

Yes, I have, and it's very taxing if I'm trying to do something high concentration. At least laptops make it easier to sneak off into a corner when there's code to write.

This is the number one factor for me preferring remote work. Commute and housing costs are also attractive, too, but an on-site job would be fine if it came with a private office.