As someone who does enjoy the Bay Area, it's saddening that as soon as work doesn't require commute, there's no draw. Which I'm sure is the same for many.
Place is not for everyone, but I picked the Bay Area because I do enjoy it.
I don’t live in the Bay Area because I want to work in tech...
I work in tech because I want to live in the Bay Area, and my skill set of technical knowledge aligned with tech pretty nicely.
In San Francisco, when the pandemic ends and everything starts actually getting back to normal, we don’t have to worry about if the weather will be nice that month. We can pick back up where we left off.
I don’t have to cram our outside summer activities into five months anymore.
I love Chicago, but I did my time.
Money usually is an object though and it's not really surprising that people paying $4K a month would depart if they don't need to live there for work any longer and they can't really enjoy at least the non-natural aspects of the area.