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Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by asdfman123 on Thursday November 21, 2019 @01:28PM (#21597551)
I don't even know who their target audience was. Many people who work from home do so because they enjoy the privacy of working from home. People who want more social interaction go to coffee shops, and plenty of people do both.

I don't see who would want to pay a few hundred bucks a month to work on a conference table surrounded by strangers.

Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by conradev on Thursday November 21, 2019 @02:07PM (#21598100)
A lot of people do this – coworking spaces are a huge thing, especially when they can host small companies who can't afford their own office.

Outside of smaller independent coworking spaces and WeWork's existing customer base there is IWG which does the same (albeit more sustainably): https://www.iwgplc.com

Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by whaaaaaat on Thursday November 21, 2019 @02:40PM (#21598563)
Please don't give your opinion on something you don't know anything about. You've clearly never even seen the inside of a WeWork because the majority of them were office spaces. The audience was small companies who preferred short time leasing, which in large cities, there were plenty of. Every wework I've been to in Manhattan has been completely full. There are 1-5 person offices, and sometimes single larger spaces, and you rented the "offices", which were just rooms. It's not like it's just a table where people sit together, that's crazy. It's office space. The benefit was you could get a place for a few months and then move somewhere else if your company isn't stable yet and you don't want to sign a year lease.
Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by jfengel on Thursday November 21, 2019 @04:05PM (#21599614)
As I understand it, the goal was also to network with other small businesses using the same space. The spaces were set up to encourage people to find opportunities to work together -- cross-marketing, sharing resources, new ideas. Kind of an incubator, without the financial support or design.

Not inherently a bad idea, though it's full of Silicon Valley optimism where one serendipity produces tons of money while a lot of other things just fail to gel -- but some people get paid regardless.

Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by ummonk on Thursday November 21, 2019 @03:06PM (#21598907)
It is the office space equivalent of elastic cloud computing. Definitely a solid market, but you gotta be diligent about the bottom line costs.
Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by rchaud on Thursday November 21, 2019 @02:12PM (#21598173)
I can't help but think that Neumann's taret audience was deep pocketed old-generation investors who've worked in corner offices for decades and fell hook, line and sinker for the "gig economy is the future" spiel.
Re:WeWork lays off 2,400 employees by psv1 on Thursday November 21, 2019 @02:57PM (#21598792)
Example - IBM rent WeWork space in London for some teams even though they have a London office.