Many reasons come to mind, such as not wanting to live in the area you work (maybe you have kids the schools are bad, or the neighborhood isn't real good). It could be that living close to a family member is more important than living close to where you work, like maybe your wife is taking care of her mother or grand mother while you are out working (or the other way around).

There are lots of good reasons. These days you just might be stuck in a mortgage because the value of your house has fallen below what you owe. Given the current "economic climate" it's very easy to have gone from a 70% LTV to 110% LTV.

All good ones. I personally find it not worth moving closer because I am in a long term mortgage as you mentioned.

I have another friend with a long commute because he lives close to where his wife works.

Another person I know used to have a commute of over 2 hours. His job location, like some others, was deliberately located away from population centers for security and safety reasons. Moving significantly closer would have been very difficult and meant being a long way away from everything in his life other than his job.

If you must know, the commute involves going out of my way to pick up kids on the way home. If the gig goes Long Term I am definitely moving closer.

Hope that didn't come across too critically; I'm just always curious. My commute is about 35 minutes each way, which is about the limit of what I can stand.

On a more on-topic note, I've looked hard and found little as far as good tech-learning podcasts. My regulars are The Moth (storytelling, fantastic), Long Now Foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking (all great, but maybe start with Dmitry Orlov, Saul Griffith, and Will Wright/Brian Eno). I just discovered Math For Primates; quite good if you're interested but not overly well-educated in math.

My local public library has a semi-decent selection of books on CD.

Also, don't underestimate the value of that time for just thinking. Turn off the radio and just let your mind wander.

I had a two hour commute for two summers when I was younger because I could live for free in San Jose, but my job was in SF. I road CalTrain everyday and was blown away by the number of people the took the train for such a long time every morning. But I guess it all comes down to just whatever is financially reasonable and keeps you happy.

And the damage to the environment (but yeah, I understand that sometimes you really have no option)