> Five years from now, I think we will not see "remote only" for a large company and think "ooh, they value their employees I guess", but rather, "uh oh, they like to think of their employees as being like virtual servers, easy to spin up and easy to shut down the moment you don't need to pay for that capacity".

I would argue that companies already view their employees this way, in office or remote. Companies do not value employees. We are valued the same way you would value coal. If you need energy, keep buying and if not, stop.