But you are right about the corporate BS.
Isn't this pretty standard in the U.S?
I've seen employers even offer reimbursement for standing desks, antifatigue-mats, co-working space memberships and home internet.
A top of the line Laptop, Docking Station, Monitors and Keyboard would amount to a few hundred dollars a month even if all of it lasted a year (and most hardware nowdays are pretty reliable for 3 years atleast) - there's no point even discussing this from the POV of an employer that's not a ramen startup off a garage.
The savings from renting a place in any city, the insurance, maintenance and security costs are significant.
OTOH, of course, someone will come along to point out that you can afford 20 spare bedrooms if you work remote and can move from SV to a farm in upstate NY.
Actually, Gdansk is lovely all year round. If Silicon Valley could move to Gdansk, it would be a great step up (but not for Gdansk).
Also use MS' RDP and brew + SSH + port forwarding + SwitchyOmega (Chrome extension).
It's like I'm at my desk at work.
Secondly, large corporations seem to function via rules that are completely immune to reality. Every 10 years or so Intel will not only insist everyone is in the office, but will look at relocating teams into their head offices for any given project - literally giving the people the option "Hey! I hear Gdansk is lovely this time of year". This sort of organisational bullshit from large companies isn't going to go away. However, you can look at the opposite side, I know people (not engineers) who work at companies where they hot-desk every day and the office is only provisioned for 70% of staff to turn up on any given day because they're too cheap to actually provide everyone a desk.
I guess what I'm saying with that second point is that for most large businesses these choices are going to be more about corporate bullshit than some sudden epiphany that working from home is great.