The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to take these positions.

We’re afraid of the companies who offshored so many jobs that they killed off entire industries in the US? There’s nothing they won’t do for a buck. If remote work doesn’t happen now, it will in the near future when they realize how much they can save on real estate costs.

It’s always been the same answer for hundreds of years. Unions and solidarity.

In software it's never been easier to start a company than before. If you have increased productivity in every part of the org you can outrace other companies.

There are a few winner take all fields, but there's a plethora of fields which have multiple large players.

At a straight 20% productivity boost in everything, the compounding gains will have you beat competitors in no time.

If you're in software, and you have a magic pill for better everything, you should just do the thing yourself.

The elite can't stop you.

Anyone who attributes a preference to one dimension, in this case elites saving commercial real estate, is oversimplifying things. I’m sure it’s a factor. But there are many factors at play, including but not limited to saving commercial real estate, saving service jobs in cities, local government retail and hotel taxes, preference by some to be in office, new grads who want to move to a city to work and not stay in their parents bedroom, improved serendipity for information sharing, better oversight of work being done, companies in long term leases they want to use, employees who enjoy access to benefits like free food, exercise classes, other perks, and a bunch more I can’t think of.