Some people also don’t have living conditions at home that are conducive to being productive. Not everyone can afford the space to have a proper home office, for example.
Absolutely correct. Any everyone's situation is different, but let's be real - the vast majority of software engineers can afford a great home office space.
> Not everyone can afford the space to have a proper home office, for example.
Because they have to live in expensive urban areas near their workplace. Their money would stretch much further if they could remote-work from rural areas.
If we are taking into account more than 1/3 of jobs could be remote, that starts to include many white-collar jobs that are not paid that well. And if we extrapolate this from the USA to other places (like Europe) you can live in a small town and still earn just enough to live in a 2 or 3 dormitories flat, with no dedicated space for WFH for one, let alone for a couple (it's 1/3 of the jobs, so chances that both can do WFH are not that low).
> it's 1/3 of the jobs, so chances that both can do WFH are not that low
It helps that those are not multiplicative probabilities. They apply to each job, so each partner will have access to ~1/3 of the jobs, totaling an access to ~1/3 of the total jobs.
Until rural areas cost of living goes up because 37% of people decided to move out to unsustainable rural areas.
Overall - moving to somewhere more rural is a fix for an individual looking to solve their financial problem but it is not a society wide solution. Rural homes are a net drain on society and are subsidized by city workers.
I bet there are plenty of medium-sized cities, with good universities and small tech poles (because let's just say it, you want to be around educated people, and yes, it's nice) with much lower costs of living than where most techies end-up living.
Sure but a lot of these places are also not sustainable either. A lot of small to medium cities are going bankrupt due to unsustainable urban sprawl.
Many young educated techies are also not really keen on the whole suburban hellscape and being completely reliant on (dino-fuel) cars either.
Cost is one factor but sustainability is another that I think is important to highlight. You can get both in a favorable position but I think it's easier to make things sustainable and less costly in a place that has people to begin with (e.g. Tokyo) than one where everyone is adamantly against building up or creating less sprawl (most lower density cities that exist in the USA).
You also have to live in that rural area too. I think there's more to living then having a giant home with nothing to do. Likely won't be able to relate to the people around you at all.
I think if a company is going to be fully remote, they should provide an office budget to every employee, so you can either rent an extra bedroom / buy a bigger house / or rent space in a co-working facility.
Working from your bedroom with a desk crammed in the corner is a serious downgrade IMO from having an office with good vibes.
