(If you are one of those poor souls with a 90 minute commute, I understand your pain, but you shouldn't try to generalize your experience)
Now I have a 60-75 minute commute over underground, and I'm not looking forward to the return to the office. There's definitely aspects of working where I long for the office, but others where I'm glad for the solitude.
If we have to return 5 days a week I'll probably have to move and pay much more or have a tiny living space.
I value my time more than my comfort so am accepting of this, but it still frustrates me after living the afore mentioned dream.
I'd also note that I regularly start work an hour or two early since working from home - with >2hrs of commuting slashed from my day, if I get a good thought at breakfast why not bash it out?
When you're facing 12hrs as a baseline for your working day it's much less appealing to contribute outside that time.
Also, the less time you spend commuting by automobile, the less likely you are to be involved in an expensive, injurious or deadly accident, especially if you're commuting while while you or others are tired in the morning, or are tired after working all day.
I can also now take a quick shower in the middle of the day when I need to get away from the screen to think.
Or I can make a granola bowl while I'm in a meeting. Or walk the dog, or do any number of low cognitive load things (especially for meetings that I'm expected to attend even when they are only tangential to my work).
Even if the commute was 30 minutes (a good day), I'd usually need to buffer time to plan for being late due to traffic accidents and construction (frequent).
Switching to remote work gave me back at least an hour every morning, and at least 1.5 hours in the evening. Anecdotally this has led to massive performance and quality of life increases.
But how many of the people making up this average leave home an hour earlier than most of us just to beat traffic?
How much buffer time is then also factored in, and wasted?
No even taking into account the cognitive and emotional cost of the commute.
i.e. the subway in Paris is full of stressed out people, stinks, is more or less reliable and makes an awful lot of stressful loud noises.
I’ve switched to cycling 2 years ago, and even when I get home drenched by the rain and frozen by the wind do I still not miss the "métro". At all.
And I’d bet driving can be quite stressful too.
Also consider overuse of cars is a big issue environmentally, while use of public transport tends to increase one's commute (bad schedules, detours).
[1]: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans...
10 minutes in a car is far less pleasant (to me) than a 25 minute walk.
Also 25 minute commute means 50 minutes out of the day, every workday. That adds up.
Yes, that sums up to over 4 hours per week, i.e. half a working day.