I only knew WeWork by name and didn't know much about it, after this thread, I googled a bit and their Twitter page is full of meme-level motivational images(Always be hustlin' signs, dogs at work), they are definitely trying to appeal to a specific audience here.
I share the sentiment of others in this thread, it looks to me like they are leveraging real estate to capture the trendy piece of the market.
Their latest offering(as it seems from their Twitter feed) is a wellness/fitness center called "Rise by We", as described on their feed: "a holistic wellness community crafted to enliven your spirit". Judging from that I wouldn't be surprised if their next bet is the next 'W hotels' of conferences/events where they can obtain a share in bigger companies events budget.
They already are doing that targeting the very small business audience:
However, I was thinking more along the lines of conference/events which the hotel business is a complement of, since so many people go to conferences to party at the company's expense, this is just one step further.
I 100% agree that the switching costs are very low in this kind of market.
It's good to hear their execution has improved. when I asked them if they had space in a manhattan location, they essentially couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me.
Only consumer-facing companies are resilient enough for you?
Meetings, you can go to the client, you can rent a meeting space by the hour. Hell, I've made a multi million pound deal in a train station waiting room.
Colleagues, one can communicate without meatspace.
Socialising - that's not work. That's for the pub.
These have all been in Palo Alto, so perhaps its acceptability is location-specific. Each year I have some MBA students from Switzerland visit and last year it was in my home -- apparently some of them were weirded out by that. (By this year's visit we'd grown and so they came to a boring office).
Oh and yes, I do work from home, sometimes the entire week.