[joshuamorton]

Put simply: yes. I know a lot of people who enjoy socialization provided at the office, and I know a lot of people who get a productivity boost due to the dynamics of from-office work. Heck, there at even people who like SF and city life on its own merits.

There are also lots of people working from 1br apartments who can't wait to work from a space that isn't also their bedroom.

[NeverFade]

> Put simply: yes. I know a lot of people who enjoy socialization provided at the office

Find a co-working space.

> Heck, there at even people who like SF and city life on its own merits.

Remote work gives you the freedom to work from anywhere. That includes other cities. You can still live in SF if you want, or choose any of the other dozens of cities that provide more benefits for far cheaper costs.

[joshuamorton]

> Find a co-working space.

Alternatively, they can work for an employer who has an office and then they don't need to pay for access to a co-working space. Their choice to do so doesn't harm you, they simply value certain aspects of the job differently, much as people value vacation vs raw salary differently.

> That includes other cities. You can still live in SF if you want, or choose any of the other dozens of cities that provide more benefits for far cheaper costs.

Yes, but for the same reason as above, there are enough people who explicitly value the "conventional" office interaction that companies will continue to cater to it. It's often cheaper and more efficient for employees to do so.

I'll also as an aside mention that

> Engineers tend to be introverted.

Is in my experience false. The hn bubble is far more introverted, on average, than my coworkers at a major tech company are. If you are introverted, you may not spend a great amount of time with those people, but i don't think it's controversial to say that the majority of currently employed software engineers don't want to stay in their homes forever.

[NeverFade]

I believe you express an opinion that is shared by many people who are simply comforted and reassured by the status-quo. Additionally, you work for Google, which has been quite stringent about keeping all work on-site. You'd like to keep your job, so cognitive dissonance induces you to conclude - without much evidence - that this status quo is The Best of All Worlds.

Working full-time from the office is a condition that was created due to certain historical preconditions. In particular, it was a good fit for industrial work, and indeed the modern urban office environment is rooted in the industrial revolution.

It is not at all necessary in our modern world. If you want to live in a big city and commute to a shared workspace every day, you can do so. However, there are so many other options available, and I dare suggest you shouldn't declare them all inferior before trying them.

Overall, onsite office work binds you to exactly one option, remote work allows you a huge freedom of choice - and that is categorically a positive thing.

[joshuamorton]

> You'd like to keep your job, so cognitive dissonance induces you to conclude - without much evidence - that this status quo is The Best of All Worlds.

No, I'm just unhappy working from home, and greatly miss the office. You don't need to invent a conspiracy theory.

> It is not at all necessary in our modern world

I never said it was. I said that many employees find it preferable. I agree some do not. But you're solution seems to be to ban offices.

> Overall, onsite office work binds you to exactly one option, remote work allows you a huge freedom of choice - and that is categorically a positive thing.

But you're proposing not the option of remote work, but remote only. That does remove choice, the choice to work from my company's office in proximity to my coworkers. I value that.

> However, there are so many other options available, and I dare suggest you shouldn't declare them all inferior before trying them.

I don't think I have. Please stop putting words in my mouth and getting defensive about other people's preferences.

[NeverFade]

Your entire counter-argument against me rests on the strawman that I proposed "banning offices", and is therefore invalid.

I never suggested "banning offices" (how would that be achieved, exactly?). In fact I specifically presented a model in which voluntary offices / co-working spaces exist for those who want them.

[joshuamorton]

> In fact I specifically presented a model in which voluntary offices / co-working spaces exist for those who want them.

No, you presented "co-working spaces" as a particular form of alternative to offices. Those two things aren't the same, and from your prior comments, it does seem that you find offices to be bad, and want to replace them with co-working spaces. (co-working spaces, at least to my mind, resemble something where I might rent a space and work in proximity to other people, but we all have various employers)

Further, when I stated that I'd likely choose an employer who provided an office, you resorted to calling me naive and implying I have ulterior motives like trying to keep my job, seemingly suggesting that me commenting negatively about offices would cause Google to fire me.

I maintain that up until this post, everything you said supported a remote-only approach, instead of remote-optional, and that's flawed. If that's a misrepresentation of your actual opinion, than you're more than welcome to clarify it, but I'll reiterate that to many, a co-working space is less useful than a dedicated company office, and both are superior to work from home. Hacker News is not broadly representative of opinions on WFH. I realize that as someone who likes work from home you may not enjoy hearing those things, but they're true.