[redrummr]

It's not about sync vs async. It's about performance. People who take up pomodoro-type work tracking are surprised at how hard it is sometimes to get 25 minutes of work done.

I know many people who perform their best when they are training somebody in a system, or are recording training, or doing a webinar. Pair programming evokes the same improvements, and it lasts.

When you're being watched you're more present, and you perform better. I would say that pair programming, assuming no huge personality friction, is more than twice as effective as single programming. There are some companies that only do pair programming, most likely because of this realisation.

[badthingfactory]

You're making arguments for pair programming which is different than mob programming. Pair programming is fine. I did it for two years. Like everything in software, there are tradeoffs, but I had no major complaints.