I think it's likely they were literally referring to the economy rather than return to office, considering WeWork stands only to lose when employees work from their employer's office
In their 2019 S-1, WeWork stated 40% of their memberships were from companies with over 500 employees. For many companies, moving to remote did mean terminating WeWork memberships.
This is why I commented the way I did but I guess your parent found it down-vote-worthy.
One of my recent companies was one of those. A bit smaller but their entire office footprint was at WeWork offices in various places. Zero remote before Covid. Had to be in a WeWork office where they had a presence. Not even just "a" WeWork.
I didn't downvote you. I don't even have the ability to downvote on HN yet. I just interpreted the parent comment differently and thought the different perspective could help provide context. Especially since I was similarly surprised at the idea that someone would prefer mandatory return to office
Interesting! Thanks for educating me. I always assumed significantly more of their business was remote folks that didn't want to work from their actual home.