[kedean]

That only looks at one side of the picture. Sound privacy is partially inbound, yes, and that can be solved with quality headphones. It's also outbound, though. If I'm on a conference call, I'd really rather not have to worry about other people listening to what I say.

Also, not everyone wants to listen to music/podcasts/video/anything while they work. The solution shouldn't be "just isolate your ears!"

[pacaro]

Ironically, my only problem with individual offices is that people then seem to think it's ok to not use headphones, and to use speaker phone. The sound isolation between neighbouring offices is rarely good enough to allow this. The way the HVAC system in the Microsoft buildings that I worked in was plumbed, you tended to have great sound isolation from one neighbour and be intimately connected with the other.

[grokas]

Most of the time I'm not actually listening to anything, I just have my cans on as a sound buffer, and they're ready when/if I play something with audio.