I've been fully remote for 6 years. I know people who's primary criteria for their next job is that it be in person. I think remote work is here to stay and there are so many people who are discovering that remote work is their preference thanks to the pandemic, but I don't think in person work is going to die, there are also lots of people that prefer that. I know that I made a lot of my first friends in SF at work and that would have been impossible if I had worked remote then. How that plays out at companies remains to be seen. I can imagine big companies divvying up workers by team. Some remote teams some in person teams. Smaller companies will likely need to make a more total choice.
Acting like there are no benefits to in person work is silly. One of the first things we did as a company going remote was to say that if anyone is on zoom in a meeting then everyone in the meeting needs to be on zoom even if many were physically in the same place. I don't think anyone would ever choose to sit in a conference room with 5 other people all on zoom together.
Everything is tradeoffs. Remote work just got a huge profile boost which is going to give a lot of people the opportunity to live life differently from how they did before. Now the pendulum is swinging back but it'll never get as far as it did before.
Acting like there are no benefits to in person work is silly. One of the first things we did as a company going remote was to say that if anyone is on zoom in a meeting then everyone in the meeting needs to be on zoom even if many were physically in the same place. I don't think anyone would ever choose to sit in a conference room with 5 other people all on zoom together.
Everything is tradeoffs. Remote work just got a huge profile boost which is going to give a lot of people the opportunity to live life differently from how they did before. Now the pendulum is swinging back but it'll never get as far as it did before.