I’ve never worked from a real office or even had a “real” job.This doesn't outright invalidate the main thrust of the piece, but it does perhaps explain the rose colored glasses he appears to have for the benefits of a normal job.
I was a homemaker for many years. Then I had a corporate job. I've done remote freelance work since.
Jobs can be crazy making, soul sucking and put you in awful situations you have no control over. People put up with it because they need a paycheck.
My mom was a homemaker for a long time and also did freelance work from home for years before going to work. I'm perhaps more prepared than most to live this way because I saw it growing up.
I'm all for finding ways to improve the status quo. That can be done without injecting so much judgy drama into the problem space.
He begins with talking about leaving a girlfriend and moving elsewhere and how miserable he was. He basically blames his misery on doing remote work.
I lived in the same house from age 3 until I was an adult. I got married, he joined the army and we went to outer first duty station. I was miserable. It was horrible. It took me years to stop blaming Texas and realize I would have been miserable anywhere.
It was a huge shock to my life to move someplace new. I had no coping skills at all for such a scenario.
You can't blame remote work for the misery of combining multiple major shocks like dumping a girlfriend and leaving town. That's not realistic. You can have that same scenario without remote work, such as by joining the military.
I do occasionally have to stop and make a conscious effort to count my blessings. Working the way I do allowed me to repeatedly move pretty much at will and that has benefited me tremendously. It helped me solve problems that would have been much more nightmarish if I needed to job hunt to move.
I wish him well in meeting his goals of improving remote work for his people. But I respectfully suggest he first disentangle some things from it in his mind that he is conflating as due to working remotely.