Microsoftie here. I haven't seen any indication for it to be due to employee demand. The vast majority of engineers on my team, and my last N teams, have agreed it was top down from leadership; and even those that preferred open offices agreed that cost cutting and space utilization are likely driving factors.

To contribute to the broader discussion; SOME teams here still have offices, but it's a dying breed. I consider myself very lucky that I found one that did, and it was certainly a factor in my choice.

Former Apple employee here. That sounds exactly like what I witnessed. The new Apple HQ is very much open office and the design was definitely top-down from execs - I just know that I had no input at all even though it was my workplace. Always got my best work done at home.

If companies can't afford to give programmers their own offices, then they should just let them work remotely from their own private offices in their homes.

Also work for MS I have an office, but wouldn't care if we went open. I worked for wall street for a while and was used to it.