[julianeon]

Yeah, I have to be pretty skeptical of the above take, for this reason:

1) I live in San Francisco. A ton of residents here commute to Mountain View and environs for work. A ton.

2) Most of those residents are young.

3) One of the few things that has been reliably proven to improve your happiness - even more than a salary bump! - is reducing your commute time.

4) With WFH (work from home) everyone who commutes from SF to elsewhere could cut their commute from 2 hrs round trip, daily, to 0.

5) Ergo, a ton of young people would quickly see the logic of this: WFH and cut your commute time to 0. They would want this option, and they will take it.

I know this complicated somewhat by the fact that you can work from the buses, but I still don't see the overcoming this widely shared preference, for no commute.

[mercutio2]

You mention this in passing at the end, but I think it’s worth emphasizing: Reducing commute time driving yourself to work has been well studied to have a very large marginal improvement in happiness.

Reducing time commuting on a comfy megacorporation’s arms-length-contracted-carriage-provider bus has been studied much less, and it’s not nearly as clear it improves people’s happiness that much.

Also, taking your commute time to zero isn’t obviously an improvement in happiness; there’s a lot of psychological benefit to having a separate space for work and home life. It’s possible for some people to prepare a home office that successfully feels separate, but it’s not automatic.