(Or at least this is what I was told when I was a contractor for them in the mid-00s in Europe, wondering why they avoided getting a single building in Manchester city centre and spread over two separate locations in the surrounding suburbs instead.)
Also see this great South Park clip for an analogy: https://youtu.be/a3ezyTXFgYM
What I said was that if small communities spring up around places where remote workers converge, that is a good thing. It doesn't defeat the purpose of remote work.
The fact that people want to go remote and distributed and then maybe start up these things called ‘offices’ is analogous to quasi anarchist hippies at festivals that want to move off the grid and let a new society flourish organically. Ultimately we end up in the same place.
Advantages:
- Employee picks the location, so it's likely far more convenient for them
- Because employee has freedom to pick their work location, they have far more freedom to pick where they live
- Because employees have freedom to pick their work locations, all of a sudden "work location" is a competitive market, everywhere, and multiple options appear vying to fulfil different preferences (how quiet should they be? are pets allowed? do you want sharp & suited & professional, or lively with events every night, or chilled and friendly, or...?)
- Employee doesn't need to change their commute or desk or _anything_ when they change jobs
- 'Office' social life independent of your colleagues: you meet a wider range of people, and you separate work relationships from those friendships
- Less presenteeism, because it's harder for people to tell when you're present (not impossible, but it pushes in the right direction)