[ck425]

You're comparing a terrible commuting scenario to a great remote scenario. You're also looking at this from the perspective of someone with an established family. Of course remote looks better!

There are more commuting scenarios that living in the SF (or London or NYC or insert major city here) with a long commute and crazy house prices. I live and work(ed) in a medium size city where a mid-level engineer can afford a decent flat 10-25min walk into the city centre with lots of walkable local community areas and green space. Moving out to a suburbs gives me a bit more space but not much else. It also comes at the expense of being further away from everything and having to drive everywhere. There's a lot of room between everyone in the same dense massive urban areas and everyone going full remote from the suburbs.

Additionally not everyone is settled down with a family. Many of us are still at the stage in life where we're (in normal times) going out, dating, going for drinks, going to events etc. For those of us at this stage the idea of moving to the suburbs is hellish. Sure an extra room would be nice but otherwise it's boring as hell.

What I've not heard discussed enough is the middle ground. If remote and distributed teams start to work better why not distribute teams across more offices in medium sized cities where we can get a trade off between both worlds. Or change the office concept to something where lots of folk work from shared offices. I'd love to go work for a FANG but I'd hate to move to London. If there was an option to work for FANG from my local WeWork office and there was a critical mass of other tech professionals doing the same that might be a good trade off.

[NeverFade]

> Moving out to a suburbs gives me a bit more space but not much else. It also comes at the expense of being further away from everything and having to drive everywhere. There's a lot of room between everyone in the same dense massive urban areas and everyone going full remote from the suburbs.

Remote works lets you choose where you want to live and work. You can stay in the city if that's your thing, or move to the suburbs.

I don't understand comments that pretend as if remote work is going to force everyone to "work from the suburbs". Remote work is about more choice.

Incidentally, remote work will also make cities more affordable, so folks like you who enjoy them will benefit tremendously.

Remote work doesn't limit your choices, that's what office work does.

Remote work greatly expands your range of options.

> Many of us are still at the stage in life where we're (in normal times) going out, dating, going for drinks, going to events etc.

Areas that are very dense in tech aren't ideal for dating. Tech is male-dominated, so if your preferred partner is female, you will find dating in Silicon Valley quite challenging.

With remote work, you could choose a city that offers better dating prospects.

Yet another win for remote work.

Literally any particular thing you'd like to optimize for: dating, meeting new people, staying near existing family and friends, raising a family of your own - remote work gives you far better and more numerous options.

[ck425]

> I don't understand comments that pretend as if remote work is going to force everyone to "work from the suburbs".

I mentioned the suburbs because the comparison you setup was suburbs vs expensive city life. I was critiquing the flawed comparison.

> Areas that are very dense in tech aren't ideal for dating. Tech is male-dominated, so if your preferred partner is female, you will find dating in Silicon Valley quite challenging.

I was making the point about expensive cities more generally. Other similar areas such as London and NYC don't have that issue.

There's also the advantages of actually being in an office. Having structure enforced by a physical separation, the social aspect of being in an office etc. Those aren't valuable to everyone but to many they're incredibly valuable.