If that's really such a waste then where are all the remote-only companies eating everybody's lunch? Has it not yet been long enough since remote working has reached some workable peak?
Maybe they are eating it? Facebook, Amazon, and Google just have a very large buffet and it would take a while for them to notice.
Heck, I am taking little bytes (pun intended) every day ;-)
But seriously, I believe that could be the next revolution in the economy. We had the industrial revolution, the technological one (internet and such). Maybe remote work can be the next one. If it starts happening and large employers start to adopt it, it could change how cities and whole regions evolve.
consume_remote_work(<<Byte:8>>) ->
Do_something(Byte);
consume_remot_work(<<Byte:8, Rest/binary>>) ->
do_something(Byte),
consume_remote_work(Rest).Consider: agile frameworks at their core focus on improving communication, but remote increases the barriers to communication. For humans, online social contact doesn't provide the same benefits as as f2f. It makes depression worse, not better. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/
I know someone at Amazon who gets flown halfway around the world over 4 times a year. They're not remote, but a frugal company like amazon decides it's important enough for them to visit headquarters regularly.
Timezones make communications harder as well, etc.
However I'll take these downsides vs the upsides.