I suspect cubicles effectively cost more than $200/year because they eat more space than open-plan desks, which forms the real cost. But even so, I suspect you could find a lot of people who would give up $1000/year of salary for that benefit.

And even closed offices could probably be offset on a salary level. I think a lot of mid-career or later devs would probably give up an annual raise in return for a private office if they were offered an explicit choice.

I could be wrong about specifics, maybe it's not cost effective to offer. But I seriously doubt that's how the choice is being made - I think a lot of people really do believe the hype about 'better collaboration', or just want to look like other companies.

Somewhere else on this page is a comment from me that I'd take $20K/year less for an office with a door. I got my wish. There are other aspects to the job that make it appealing (short commute, laid back atmosphere, etc.), but if it were open office, I wouldn't have taken the job for the money it pays.

Midway compromise, that we've joked about at work: Use those walls per-team instead of per-person.

A little more spending would have obtained traditional cubicle walls to close off the open side, but it worked pretty well in practice.

On the other side of the room were a whiteboard and a conference table, and lunch was typically eaten at that conference table.

That said there were only like 5 desks in that room, and I'm not sure how well it would scale.

Refers to cubicles which in my experience DID solve a lot of problems. People talk less when they don't see other people around them.