I was kind of expecting this argument. And honestly, I don't think this is it. I see friends almost every day after work and most days during lunch.

My main point was that work used to be much more than 8 hours of screen time for me before. And since it's a third of my waking time, I feel I lost something significant.

Are you accomplishing anything during those 8 hours or do you sit in meetings all day listening to people qualify their existence? I changed employers because of this and sacrificed compensation to do so. That resulted in a quality of life improvement for me.

Definitely, and I absolutely love what I am doing. It's only that I really miss the whole communal and social aspect around it and feel few other people do.

Honestly, your work seems like it's a huge part of your life, and it's not anywhere near that for the vast majority of other devs, working remotely or not. People generally spend their "absolute love" points on their kids, spouses, pets, friends, etc. and leave work to be a transaction involving time and money. And why shouldn't they? If someone absolutely loves Wells Fargo, GE, Microsoft, Amazon, or whatever, that company is not going to "love" them back.

Nah, you're wrong there. I actually only work 4 days / week for most of the year. It's not that I am requiring my working time to fill my life with meaning, it's more that I feel the almost third of my life I spent working has significantly lost in fun and meaning for me personally. The whole point of the post was to see how others felt about it and get some insights into different (and similar) perspectives.

Even so, this meaning was never really there at the scale you might be thinking of. I understand its significance for you, but not many people are shedding tears over not having to commute 1 hour or more 5 days per week to be around people they don't really like in an environment filled with distractions, later coming home to a house they can barely afford on 2 full time salaries. To understand the change that has happened, you have to consider the greater context.

If you're a hotshot, you should honestly consider gathering some like-minded people in your area and launching a startup.

OPs post resonates with me, even though my wife is often WFH at the same times I am. In an office it’s nice to be able to go for a walk with someone while you talk, or grab a coffee and sit with it. With WFH all interaction is through a screen, it feels subpar to me.

Cats and dogs cannot understand your frustration with a tech stack or share a similar experience. I have plenty of people around ready to talk to me (sometimes actively trying), but all I can discuss with them barely overlaps with my true interests and situations.

Tech stack frustrations exist regardless. Some people need things to be easy and thus expect some framework to do their job for them. I would rather write the lowest level universal solution possible. Being in the office never resolved these conflicts. The only solution occurs when somebody makes a firm decision. I have always attempted to make my case in writing and in my career it seems many developers are hesitant to put anything in writing.