A flaw in this article like every other I've ever read both acknowledges that we don't have good objective data and then also goes to say "remote work works, don't fight it", etc. COVID wasn't this big, controlled experiment that tested remote work - it was the opposite, there was no "control" as everyone went remote at the same.
There isn't good data in either direction, and I doubt there will be, ever - but that's a poor reason to not be opinionated about something. There's limited and conflicting data on whether static vs. dynamic programming languages are more productive, but plenty of people on this site have very strong opinions on that. Remote work is no different.
It is time to stop complaining one way or the other and let people and markets vote with their feet and dollars.
I worked for a fortune 300 corp in pre pandemic times. I interacted with people in NY, PA, and IL on a daily basis. Every meeting had at least 1 person dialing in. Other than grabbing lunch with coworkers I miss nothing about being remote.
Work during COVID had a lot of other things impacting it (e.g., extreme stress, being new to RTO, massive macro economic shifts).
The word "control" comes from "controlling confounding factors except for the factor being studied", which is definitely not the case when comparing COVID era work to pre COVID work.
People are going to complain even more esp wrt markets (and whether they are trying to protect a loosing position or not)... you'll probably be better off just not reading these things...
There isn't good data in either direction, and I doubt there will be, ever - but that's a poor reason to not be opinionated about something. There's limited and conflicting data on whether static vs. dynamic programming languages are more productive, but plenty of people on this site have very strong opinions on that. Remote work is no different.
It is time to stop complaining one way or the other and let people and markets vote with their feet and dollars.