> Or why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations?

Playing a little bit the devil's advocate here:

Risk aversion and general tendency to apply gradual changes.

Would you bet your company to run an experiment almost no one else is trying? Perhaps letting your workers work from home works perhaps you'll miss all deadlines and generate all kinds of drama.

An external factors kicked in and everyone was in the same experiment. Things were messy but not completely unmanageable. Some were even surprised things kept working as well as they did.

Now, the big question is: will this take a toll on people? Will companies that choose to continue with this work style be put in disadvantage as other companies switch back to on-prem?

I think that's exactly right and I've even heard CIOs use the term "forced experiment." A lot of things companies have done which have turned out more OK than they necessarily expected were probably on some "Interesting idea. Maybe we should try this out in some indefinite future" list.

>why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations?

Because it seemed impossible, until now.

I mean, corporations do regularly offshore as much work as they possibly can and build new plants/offices in low cost locations. Obviously, they need employees, but it's not as if companies don't already do everything they can to reduce the cost of labor.

> Yeah, then why not fire everyone?

That would make the ones doing the firing redundant too. You want as many employees as possible as cheap as possible.