[trentnix]

I'm not sure it's relevant. It's not as if remote options haven't been available for a long time. The wages in San Francisco aren't determined explicitly by cost-of-living, they are determined by the scarcity of availability of the right resources.

Businesses found it necessary to exist in Silicon Valley because it provided certain benefits, and businesses found it necessary to have on-premises employees because it provided certain benefits. Since California won't allow any on-premises anything, the cost-benefit of being in the Valley and having people in the office is being reset. But if your skills and aptitude are scarce, there's no reason to believe wages won't continue to reflect that. And if your skills and aptitude aren't scarce, you were overpaid in the first place.

[throwaway201103]

The support for remote has expanded greatly. Zoom isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than a group of people sitting around a speakerphone or a glitchy skype or WebX call trying to work with a remote person. And if everyone was remote, forget about it it was like getting the planets to align for everyone to be in productive remote communication. Remember spending the first 15 minutes of every conference call just getting everyone online and tech issues settled?

[trentnix]

True story, but I feel like that's the fairly distant (in Internet years) past.

I just know that the improved state of affairs has my wife and I dreaming of remote work in a rural area one day soon. Come on Starlink!

[nph5667]

I agree, and frankly, at this point, I think the changes did not pass the point of no return. But this depends on whether the vaccines eventually work and for how long, will the virus mutates etc. What I know is that never before the industry had this global "remote operation" training on such a global scale and who knows will it result in changes or it was decided that it's unsustainable and everyone wants to be back to normal asap.