[rootusrootus]

> Cause of death: remote work

It seems premature to say this with confidence, though. Last time I saw the stats, remote work overall is down to 10% and still dropping pretty fast. Yes, prevalence is higher in the tech world, but still, we should wait until it stabilizes (especially with an incoming recession) before proclaiming that two years of remote work has changed the world.

[88913527]

It might be premature, but it seems like the cat is out the bag, especially if it means lower operating costs for businesses. Everything in the near future points to cash-flow positive businesses being the Wall Street darlings. Being unprofitable is no longer in vogue, which is a pretty seismic shift for the bay. If you don't need the office space, you're going to get undercut by your competitor who goes without. Besides staffing costs (which also go down when you hire technologists from outside of Bay Area), your second biggest software company cost is going to be office space.

[beebmam]

I think the comments on Hacker News tend to suffer from Selection Bias of the most Online engineers. I wouldn't trust the highest voted comments as an accurate depiction of reality. In the same regard, I wouldn't trust any comment as an accurate depiction of reality.

[908B64B197]

> Besides staffing costs (which also go down when you hire technologists from outside of Bay Area)

That's not what I've seen. Top talent still commands SF salaries, no matter where they happen to be located.

So far everyone I've seen try to implement Geo-adjustment magically had to carve out "special" deals for most engineers. They won't talk about it openly of course.

[daxfohl]

I mean, most of the jobs went to the suburbs in the 90s because of cost and convenience, then boomeranged back to the city for (culture? fun? actually idk why; I liked suburbs better). So, no reason history won't repeat itself.

[steveBK123]

A lot of urbanists overlook the way online culture and modern logistics have brought so much of the "culture" (good ethnic cuisines and food trends) to the suburbs and even exurbs in weeks/months instead of the 10+ years trends used to take to travel.

Anyone who grew up in the burbs in the 70s-90s and goes back today can observe this.

Anecdata - I have a sibling who lives in fairly rural MAGA country outer exurbs and yet has both bubble tea & pho shops in driving distance.

Similarly "well everything is so far in the burbs".. ok well, I've lived nearly 20 years in NYC and my average commute has been about 40 minutes. All my friends live all over the 5 boroughs, most of which are a good 30-40 minutes by uber or subway. We mostly see each other weeknights after work in midtown/downtown since thats closer.

Remote or even 2-day in-office hybrid work makes the trade offs of being 30~60 miles outside the city much more attractive.

The city has many conveniences and also a ton of inconveniences, it doesn't take a lot to put the balance out of whack and make you question why you pay so much for it.

[more_corn]

Go walk around SoMa and report back. Return to office is not going to happen there. It was too expensive, too crowded, too unpleasant. Everyone took the opportunity presented by the pandemic to peace out.

It’s never coming back. Companies that know have been shutting their SF offices. Once it starts it’ll become a positive feedback loop. And it’s well underway.

An added wrinkle is that the city is addicted to spending. When income drops they’re in for a rude awakening. Already dysfunctional government offices will cease to function entirely. SF is headed for some dark times.

[eklitzke]

The article has data showing that the number of access card swipes in buildings in downtown SF is 30% of what it was pre-pandemic. Whether or not the 10% statistic you cited is true, it's definitely not true in downtown SF.