How do we differentiate "addictive" behaviors from "non-addictive"? Is it illegal if people like your product too much? There isn't a clear definition here of where free will comes into play.
This is the intention of capitalism - profits go to the companies who can build products that people are most enticed to buy. A company that doesn't work to make their product loved/addictive will not continue to exist.
Another way of phrasing what you've said is that we should prevent companies from building products that people really like and want to use. No one is forcing anyone to use Facebook.
A flaw in this article like every other I've ever read both acknowledges that we don't have good objective data and then also goes to say "remote work works, don't fight it", etc. COVID wasn't this big, controlled experiment that tested remote work - it was the opposite, there was no "control" as everyone went remote at the same.
There isn't good data in either direction, and I doubt there will be, ever - but that's a poor reason to not be opinionated about something. There's limited and conflicting data on whether static vs. dynamic programming languages are more productive, but plenty of people on this site have very strong opinions on that. Remote work is no different.
It is time to stop complaining one way or the other and let people and markets vote with their feet and dollars.
I worked for a fortune 300 corp in pre pandemic times. I interacted with people in NY, PA, and IL on a daily basis. Every meeting had at least 1 person dialing in. Other than grabbing lunch with coworkers I miss nothing about being remote.
Work during COVID had a lot of other things impacting it (e.g., extreme stress, being new to RTO, massive macro economic shifts).
The word "control" comes from "controlling confounding factors except for the factor being studied", which is definitely not the case when comparing COVID era work to pre COVID work.
People are going to complain even more esp wrt markets (and whether they are trying to protect a loosing position or not)... you'll probably be better off just not reading these things...
You can make an argument in the other direction too - prove that WFH is better than RTO, or else we should return to the default that modern society has worked in for the massive majority of our history. There is not reliable data on either side - some of the most important things are also incredibly hard to measure. Will company X do better choosing C++ or Rust? Static or dynamic typing? These questions aren't easily answerable with a study.
I'm certain CEOs of FAANG are looking at stats to make these decisions. And what many WFH diehards miss is that your (or my) individual productivity is irrelevant, because all that matters is the output of the company as a whole. I can work really efficiently on the wrong thing and/or not spend time helping others in a way that my overall output for the company, not myself, is worse vs. in-office.
I've come to the same conclusion - having thoroughly enjoyed remote work for the first ~year of Covid, I realized it was a net negative on many long-term aspects I valued.
I do believe remote work can "work" - so can four day work weeks (probably even three day) and many other arrangements. Companies and individuals can do it and not go bankrupt.
But I think to reach your fullest potential as a team/company/unit, you simply need to spend a lot of time together. If you don't want to reach your full potential, then that's a choice you can make.
WFH is one solution, but it's not free in terms of collaboration costs. There's a reason no one thinks college is better remote, for example. Sure, it's fine for some jobs but it's not super obvious that it's a net positive for output.
People can also live closer to work, or use other methods (biking, running, etc.) to combine exercise + commute. Many studies have indicate that people overestimate the happiness of a larger house and underestimate the daily happiness toll of a long commute
That's getting unrealistic since it's becoming unaffordable even for well-paid salaried jobs, it's a non-solution given the current housing situation in most of the major cities where jobs actually are.
> WFH is one solution, but it's not free in terms of collaboration costs.
Why should the employee bear the costs of it though? If collaboration is better in-person what can employers do to enable that? I shouldn't be paying with my lifetime for the eventual benefit the corporation gets with in-person work, I surely wasn't happier nor more productive when I had to work in crappy open-plan offices with all its distractions: people passing by, doors being open/closed, chatter from other groups, interruptions from people wanting to ask questions right-the-fucking-now, having to work 100% of the time with headphones to be able to focus, etc. On top of that I had to pay the commute both in cash and time, the only way I'm going back to the office is if there's a significant increase in pay to compensate the inconvenience.
The increase in pay can come as a 4-day work week as well, then I wouldn't mind at all going back to the office even if my commute is 2h/day. A completely free day is much more valuable than the snippets of free time I get after a work day, days I don't have much energy left to do what I actually want in my life.
Not in America. We have a thing called "suburbs" here. That's where people live. For cost, quality of life, school, etc. reasons. Some cities don't even have a center, such as LA which is just sprawl in every direction as far as the eye can see. You may work in Santa Monica and your spouse works in DTLA. At least one of you is going to have an absolute hell of a commute. SV isn't better. Your place of work probably is the suburbs. Just not your suburbs.
> no one thinks college is better remote
Says who? My college experience: go sit in a giant auditorium with 60 other people and listen to a lecture with no actual interaction with the professor. I could have stayed home and watched a YouTube video with less distraction and more comfort. In college you are entirely on your own to learn the material. That's the best time to go remote. I can sit and rewind a video until I understand it. I can pause and take a break.
> happiness of a larger house
That's probably the last reason you buy a house in CA. But you don't have to make that trade-off today. Because remote is a thing.
Today I went and took a shit in my private bathroom. I didn't have some guy come in and sit down not even 2 feet away and start gassing me with his morning diarrhea. I also didn't go back to my open office hot desk under the harsh florescent lights and try to read my morning email with people walking and talking behind me wondering if these people are looking at my screen.
Not in Europe as well. You can't afford to uproot your family just because your new employer is on the other side of the city, and yet you're expected to if you want the job. A lot of my friends in Germany commute by car to work just because they don't liver within sensible cycling/public transport distance.
Some cities in europe are running with even worse systems than they had in wwii. Like heres a train station that eventually takes you to the capital city four times a day, and thats it. They ripped out the old tram networks already in many cities if they ever even had them at all. Some of the cities in south europe it seems like on foot is still the fastest way to get around, just as it was when the romans built the place, because of how much narrow one way gridlock the bus or other vehicles sit in.
I for sure believe college is better remote, during lectures I feel like a hostage: forced to hear stuff i don't care about or already know, forces to hear it four times so the people that didn't get can try again, forced to hear it yet again the next four days, forced to commute someplace so they can grade me based on my "presence", forced to waste focus and time working assignments I know aren't worth a thing in the real life.
While I don't wholly disagree, that sounds a lot like arranging your life around your work rather than the other way around. Not that I have a regular uurban office anyway (my "official" office if I went in is out in the suburbs), I'm not at all sure that would lead me to live in a city apartment/condo at this point even if I did.
>There's a reason no one thinks college is better remote, for example.
You're still young and developing in your college years. By the time you're in the workforce at >21 years, you are already socialized and more fit to handle remote collaboration.
Fair warning: all those connections you've made are very easy to lose within first few years after entering the workforce, and it's very hard to make new ones once you're a working adult.
There are plenty of people who do side projects outside of work, train for marathons, etc. That doesn't mean you're atypical - most people don't run marathons, for instance - but I don't think Carmack is this wild, totally out-of-band 1 in a million in terms of energy/motivation
Wat? 2x? You can lock yourself in a conf room in the office and...it'll be effectively the same as if you were remote, right? I don't see the reasoning
All the people in here that can lock themselves into conference rooms for 8h, makes me wonder why companies even have open plan offices to begin with. I know that if I squat a conference room at all times, I'd get an ear full. Also conference rooms are for conferences, not for long term focused work at an ergonomic desk. Other things that make me more productive at home: I'm in an environment I like, surrounded by my wife and pet, at a desk that is just dialed in to how I like it, with very few distractions, zero commute means more sleep, kitchen at home means better food, proximity to my house means I can do some chores while on break etc.
Are you as comfortable in an office as at home? When I'm in office I can't wait to get home. When I'm WFH I don't think about time I think about tasks.
Humorous that you're getting downvoted for asking a valid question. It's simple to me - you can emulate remote work in an office by locking yourself in a conf room and never talking to anyone IRL. You can't emulate an office while remote. Working from the office offers more optionality for communication, so there's no downside and only upside vs. remote.
If you simply want to minimize time working, which is an unknown but certainly non-zero amount of employees, it's definitely easier and more fun to do that at home vs. in an office.
There won't be hard evidence for a long time, if ever, on which is better - but the optionality argument makes the decision pretty obvious to me.
You can emulate commute fatigue by standing next to your nearest busy street to absorb the noise pollution for 45 minutes before and after the working day. You can't emulate the lack of commute fatigue while working at the office. So there's no downside and only upside vs. from office.
The optionality argument makes the decision pretty obvious to me.
