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Comment by vladvasiliu | Hacker News Reader

This is an often recurring argument on this subject.

For example, I don't care about having a big garden but I don't necessarily enjoy living in a dense city. If I could WFH at least three days a week for the foreseeable future, I would gladly move to a town in the suburbs where I could have a bigger apartment for the price of my studio apartment. I bet a lot of people would do the same. This would lessen the pressure on housing in the city center, so people like you who actually prefer living in the big city for reasons other than work could afford larger apartments.

My main reason for living where I do is so that my commute is less than 30 minutes each way.

I guess the point is that as the constraint of everyone working in the same place is reduced, there will be less people wanting to live in the city allowing better conditions for those who do.

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I mean, permanent remote is also not great (particularly in a context where there are no offices), because for people in my living situation that puts the onus on us to find our "work" zone. I'd rather not spend extra money on more real estate or a WeWork-type membership.

I just don't find it very surprising that ~60-70% of people don't particularly like permanent remote, since it's 1. a departure from the norm and 2. people usually build their home-work separation with the commute, and I would say people expressing missing the commute separation at least some of the time represent a majority, if not a plurality, of my direct coworkers. But we are also at a company that let people do partial WFH pre-COVID.

The solution to the home-work separation, which also has potential to improve mental and physical health, is to go for a 20 minute brisk walk at start and end of the work-day.

Personally I don't know why we need to keep prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions for people who may respond differently. Prescribing fully office was terrible, why is prescribing fully remote not?

Forcing people into a specific building vs saying they can work anywhere. It's a massive difference. People throw around the term WFH, but you could really work anywhere. It's freedom.

There are limits. You’ll be restricted by timezones and your ability to function in them. WFH doesn’t mean async.

Because prescribing simply, easy to agree with yet wildly inaccurate (by their very nature) rules of thumb for every situation is a quick easy way to rack up cheap virtue points.

You get what you incentivize. See that number in the corner? That's why the solution for everything gets turned into lowest common denominator five world sentences.

That's about as helpful as telling someone with depression to "just be happy."

They literally recommended something simple and physical that almost any person could do.

Without any regard for whether it works for all people all of the time.

Yeah, anyone who has already solved the actual problem by other means. Which is why it's like asking a depressed person to be happy.

My kid is in day care, so I get that separation by dropping her off and picking her up. (Fortunately day care is close to my home, not to my office!)

The work office is not the only way to have an office.

In these times, I'm renting a small one person private office a few minutes away (by bike) from home. It's the best of all worlds. Quiet space to work, it is outside of the house for separation, but very close so the commute is minimal on a bike and don't need to drive.

I don't love having to pay for the space but objectively it is less than the cost of fuel I was spending every month on the commute so I'm still saving money. And my commute is ~7 minutes on a bike instead of 60 minutes driving. And I'm so close to home I can come back mid-day to see my son. Win-win-win.

So yes, I'm planning for permanent remote, life is so much better.

I see this solution becoming more common as remote work increases in prevalence.

I can see this becoming the norm.

What is surprising is the WFH is sort of the default, people have always worked where they live. Whether you are farmer in 1500 Congo or a chinese blacksmith in the Qin dynasty. Life is work.

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