> I feel employees should get paid for their commutes.
This would lead to more pollution, sprawl, and deaths by automobile as people would be incentivized to live further from work.
Yes, and now they would be even more incentivized.
> Also, it would be nice if people's choices were as binary as this line of thinking seems to suggest.
What's your point?
> It seems to me that many people would rather have a shorter commute either way.
Yes. But if further incentivized to have a longer commute, they would (in aggregate).