> If that's really such a waste then where are all the remote-only companies eating everybody's lunch?

Maybe they are eating it? Facebook, Amazon, and Google just have a very large buffet and it would take a while for them to notice.

Heck, I am taking little bytes (pun intended) every day ;-)

But seriously, I believe that could be the next revolution in the economy. We had the industrial revolution, the technological one (internet and such). Maybe remote work can be the next one. If it starts happening and large employers start to adopt it, it could change how cities and whole regions evolve.

Many players are already moving in the opposite direction. It doesn't mean that remote is not possible, but that remote is more challenging than colocation.

Consider: agile frameworks at their core focus on improving communication, but remote increases the barriers to communication. For humans, online social contact doesn't provide the same benefits as as f2f. It makes depression worse, not better. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/

I know someone at Amazon who gets flown halfway around the world over 4 times a year. They're not remote, but a frugal company like amazon decides it's important enough for them to visit headquarters regularly.

f2f is important greed and there is problem flying someone over 4 times over in year. Heck even more. It's the idea that it has to be the default. I work remotely but when we brainstorm an idea we like to fly to a site and hang around there for a week, white-boarding and socializing afterwards.

Timezones make communications harder as well, etc.

However I'll take these downsides vs the upsides.

Something like that?

    consume_remote_work(<<Byte:8>>) ->
        Do_something(Byte);
    consume_remot_work(<<Byte:8, Rest/binary>>) ->
         do_something(Byte),
         consume_remote_work(Rest).

Exactly! Can even to do it bit by bit if feeling particularly cruel that day.

Maybe they're eating their own lunch. I'd bet if the metric is revenue-per-employee, 37Signals is probably kicking most of the bigger tech companies arses.

37Signals does not have a scale worth comparing to.

Google and Amazon have, instead of going remote, established branch offices all over the US, in every cool city where hip young non-Republicans live.

I would think WordPress is a good example.