[cblconfederate]

theoretically, "cannot afford" is impossible when remote work is abundant. After all what confines people to that tiny apartment was the physical requirements of their (or their parents') workplace. It certanily doesnt exclude anyone, it slightly inconveniences them, in return for greatly improving the lives of many more.

[blowski]

I have to say, while you're trying to be inclusive, your comment comes across as exclusive to the specific lifestyle of a career like a young, unattached software developer.

There are a lot of reasons why someone might not be able to move wherever they like. For example, they don't want to leave the area where they grew up, where all their friends and family live, and their kids go to school. Or where their partner can't move because they work somewhere like a hospital.

As for "slightly inconveniences"... maybe for some it's nothing more than that, but for many people it's been an absolute nightmare.

I admire your desire to make work more inclusive, but the irony is that working from home tends to benefit wealthy, educated individuals in highly-paid specialist jobs. We need a lot of other changes if we're to have mass remote working without a huge increase of economic inequality.

[cblconfederate]

i think that's trivializing the word "exclusion". Choosing the bohemian urbanite lifestyle is an incredibly luxurious choice compared to the reality of a disabled person, a parent who wants to care for their kids or a person caring for elderly parents somewhere in eastern europe. For the cases you 're talking about , remote work will always be beneficial: if there are no more "central business districts", real estate prices will fall precipitously. I also don't see how remote work will lead to anything but reduction of economic inequality. For example , blue collar work will remain the same, it will just be distributed in wide areas instead of cramped city centers, allowing workers to rent more cheaply. On the other end , highly paid jobs like doctors cannot become remote.

[blowski]

Your comment makes it sound like everyone who lives in a city is a hipster quaffing expensive coffees and wearing silly t-shirts, doing social media influencing. Those are exactly the kind of people who will benefit from remote working.

I'm talking about cleaners, administrators, callcentre workers, fast food staff, delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers, etc, living in a small flat in an unfashionable neighbourhood. They suffer very much from social exclusion, and handwavy arguments about how everything will just work itself out sounds naive and silly.

[cblconfederate]

I m confused, you said i was excluding unattached sw devs, but now you say that these are the people who will benefit most. I also don't understand how RW will affect non-remote blue collar workers in any negative way

[blowski]

Right, I see my comment before was a bit confusing. I'll rephrase.

For a software dev (especially those with a few years of experience), work tends to be easy to come by. We pick up our laptop, tether to our mobile phone, whack out a few CVs and offers come flooding in. If you're unattached (single, no dependents) you can work from wherever you like - you write some code, push it to Git, and deploy to a server.

But most people's jobs and lives don't look like that. They are rooted by partners, children or elderly relatives. By jobs that require you to be there in physical form. By personalities that struggle with an immense amount of change. By pay structures and pensions that reward longevity.

To your last point, about how it remote working will have a negative effect on blue collar workers:

1. If remote-working is a human right, then it must be granted to ALL workers - regardless of the shade of their collar. I'm extremely sceptical that work requiring a physical presence will see a huge boost in wages. Thus, it risks merely be a perk offered to those already well compensated.

2. Since remote-working tends to benefit who already have large houses, fast internet, good technology, and good networks, it entrenches their position. If you currently earn minimum wage serving burgers in McDonalds, and can't afford a good laptop and internet connection, you will find it hard to even get on the ladder where remote-working is a norm. Thus it will most likely reduce social mobility.