Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally.

You need to get out of your bubble. After having traveled to more than 60 countries on all the continents (except Antarctica), I can assure you that a majority of humans do not have good reliable public transport. It is a luxury that only some parts of the world have.

Just as an example, right now I am in an Indian city where there is some minimal public transport but a majority of people need their own vehicle to commute for most of their journeys. And it is not an unusual scenario for India, which contains more population than Europe and North America combined.

You're being silly. The majority of the world also doesn't have access to airplanes, but that doesn't mean they don't work. OP is certainly not in the ridiculous bubble you're describing.

OP's words: "Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally."

I don't think OP understands the meaning of the word globally

We need to keep in mind the framing of this- it’s a discussion about commuting vs wfh. In the universe of locations where that’s a serious conversation the US is an outlier in terms of poor public transit.

Don't you think Indians too have serious discussions about commuting vs wfh? Now I am asking this seriously - what bubble are you living in if you think that topic doesn't pertain to people in developing countries?

I do not think that it is valid to compare a developing country that can't provide even proper sanitation to US.

We can compare US to Japan, to Europe, perhaps to some parts of China but certainly not to India - it would be too much apples to cucumbers comparison.

I agree. Then let's say "developed world". Saying US is a global outlier is silly when much of the globe is underdeveloped.

Perhaps, but we can say that there are certain reasons why the public transportation can be not very good in the developing world.

Imagine that we but every country and their development index and their public transportation development index on a XY graph? Would US still stand out?

Let's assume that it does. Then we can say that US is a global outlier.

I now see where you are coming from and based on your definition, it makes sense that US is a global outlier. However, the dimension of developed status of a country was not at all apparent in the original context which was only about WFH, commute and public transport.

Why would you think comparing the developing world with the USA makes in any way sense - do you actually think the US is at the developmental level of India?

When comparing similarly wealthy countries the US is absolutely an outlier in this.

> Why would you think comparing the developing world with the USA makes in any way sense

Because you said - "Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally." "Globally" implies the entire world. Now why are you moving the goalposts? If you wanted to confine the discussion to the developed world, just call out US being an outlier in the developed world.

I think it was obvious what they meant given context.

I don't think it is that obvious. HN is a global platform after all.

It stands to reason that someone who has travelled to over 60 countries would have the ability to understand what someone is trying to say without being this needlessly pedantic.

Probably we have different reasoning processes then. But this discussion is about WFH vs remote and the impact of not having to commute. It is a very pertinent topic to a lot of workers in developing countries because they too have to endure shitty commutes every day.