People like yourself have been fixated on that one sentence because it’s easy to dismiss and ignored the other points I raised.

I’m still yet to hear one single reason why it is “offensive” to have to pay for your own travel into work. I’ve given plenty of reasons why I don’t see an issue with it but nobody has given any reasons why it’s offensive beyond simply saying that it is so.

Here's an answer: because it's time from our life, stress, cost, and physical risk that we are taking for someone else's benefit that we am not compensated for. That is highly and inherently offensive, which is why most users aren't bothering to engage you on it. People aren't going to spend their time arguing over something that is self-evident; if the other person can't see it that's their problem, not ours. Horse, water, drink, etc.

I think most people aren’t nothing to engage because they’re, and your, point of view is completely unrealistic, overly simplistic and clearly not ever going to work in the real world. So instead you have to make emotional pleas, ignore counter arguments because “isn’t it obvious…” and generally pull all the usual shades debate tactics that one does when they know they can’t win an argument on merit alone.

How does such a compensation work fairly when someone people pay the premium to live closer? What’s stopping you from working on the train and counting that towards your working hours? Etc. what’s stopping you from getting a job closer to home?

There’s so many flaws to your argument and the only point you make that cannot be refuted is your sense of entitlement. So it’s not surprising I’m unconvinced.

But we might just have to agree to disagree on this topic. I suspect this is more a question of perceived morality than it is something tangible that can be proved.

> What’s stopping you from working on the train and counting that towards your working hours?

Laws and agreements?

You’re supposed to guard company data, you can’t just open your laptop in the middle of anything and let everybody on the train take a look at your code or any other company data.

Also, you’re assuming that the train is not crowded enough that you can sit comfortably…

I do take your point but on the trains I commute on, it’s really common to see people with a laptop open and worked. I do this myself on occasions too. So it’s certainly possible for some commutes even if it’s not a universal truth.

Sorry for the quality of this comment. Ironically I was typing this on my phone while on my commute home (train, not driving) and my phones autocorrect must have gone into overdrive. Too late to edit it now though.