[rmk]

> In all seriousness, how does this make economic sense? The company is incentivizing that people move to areas with a high cost of living, but why exactly? What economic benefit does that bring to the company?

It doesn't always bring an economic benefit to the company, which is why there are debates over companies calling employees back into the offices. That is almost always based on gut feeling and herd-mentality, than on any concrete data.

However, companies have to recruit from labor markets, and as such, they are bound by its vicissitudes. Despite the pandemic scattering many software people all over the country, the vast majority of competent software developers with cutting-edge work experience are still to be found in the Bay Area. Therefore, it makes sense for the company to insist that other hires also live in the Bay Area. Perfectly understandable. If the company is able to compete effectively for talent in the remote market and able to make it work (timezones and cultural differences do matter, even if it were possible to recruit remote workers easily), then it would do it, sooner or later.