Again, I want to reiterate: if it really made workers worth less, it could be factored into salary. It's not about that. It's about something else that has to do with management and control.

Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting for a minute that remote work has challenges, but that's the thing. We had to work those out. Security, compliance, VPNs, beyond corp, whatever... We already HAD to do it. The only reason now to discard that would be sabotage.

I think an assumption that I have is that the balance of supply/demand may be prejudiced against remote work, because it takes time for people to accept or be open to new ways of doing things.

Not surprising, given remote work didn't exist for 99% of that time period.

> they will need affirmative proof that the new way works better than the old way

If they couldn't find enough evidence during the last few years they have bigger problems than the choice between remote and office work.

I agree that status quo and stability have at least some non-zero probative value, but you have to acknowledge that the status quo only exists because the dinosaurs didn't document their prehistoric internet well enough, so our ancestors had to rediscover the concept of a zoom meeting.

(Edit: obviously I wrote this in jest, but in all seriousness, when considering the value of "how it's always been done" it's extremely important to consider how we happened to stumble upon the status quo, with a holistic and historical bird's eye view. This is consequential to the analysis.)

For many people I know this is the case, so I don't think pure remote or location work are "it".

I work 100% remote with semi-flexible hours and a big part of this is the freedom to leave my house and do things during the day, like meet up with friends, or go exercise while the sun is out in winter etc.

That's nice for you.

From personal experience on the other hand {statement of preference}

You guys can go to office together, and leave the rest of us out of this?

You can still do that. My friend rented an office a five minute walk from his home - it costs him 3% of his salary.

That's a completely different issue from remote vs in-person work. You should learn to be comfortable being alone/by yourself, especially as a man.