Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

People who like being exclusively in-office work for company x, people who want only remote company y, people who like hybrid company z, etc.? I feel like there are a million possible legit reasons to prefer different modes, and now there are more choices available.

For a lot of people, certainly in my case, the benefits of remote far outweigh the benefits of in person. At least in the US public transportation is either nonexistent or so bad it's not even worth using which means we have long commutes. Hours a day in some cases so moving to remote work immediately frees up dozens of hours of free time per month. Lots of folks in IT have ASD or something close to it and noisy chaotic offices make it impossible to do focused work.

In any case there are certainly plenty of Companies that are back to fully in person so why not just work for one of those? No one is forcing you to stay remote if you don't want it.

I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here.

At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car.

Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after work often involves a much greater time cost, thereby reducing the likelihood that someone will partake of the opportunity. So office work is more likely just office work with no after-work fun.

Just like most people in the US have no clue what life is like in the big EU cities, most Europeans have no idea how different US life is. I've lived both, and I can say without question that it's easier to have a fun office+after-office experience in a city like Amsterdam or Berlin (or London probably) than Denver, Dallas, or most other big US cities.

OP likely doesn't factor this in and comes to the naive conclusion that it must mean we don't like talking to people.

Instead, people have simply decided that theh will WFH instead, an option which isn’t available to the majority of workers, who are generally not as privileged as the people who can WFH.

The next step will be all the WFH people who are almost certainly significantly higher earners complaining about having to pay taxes towards improving commutes and public transit which they don’t even use, so gradually public transit will get worse and/or more expensive at the turnstile, making life even worse for the largely underprivileged who don’t have the option to WFH.

The push for WFH has been approached entirely from an individual perspective, which will result in further separation between the privileged and the rest, a further rise in inequality, a further increase in social disunity and a further destruction in community.

It didn’t have to be this way. We could have approached WFH in a much more community oriented way, having people WFH but simultaneously investing in making the lives of those who don’t/cannot WFH easier as well, through investing in better public transport, etc.