That’s the sort of thing that isn’t immediately obvious, but becomes more noticeable as time goes on. The first months of the pandemic people were able to coast on their existing connections, but it becomes harder years on, especially if half your team has _never_ met in person or come to company HQ.
In the before times, good remote companies would be intentional about having regular company meetings in a single location. That is a good alternative. But if you already have an office and already expect everyone to be relatively close, why fly everyone to London or SF?
Finally, everyone being remote is really bad for younger/newer employees who completely miss out on networking, mentorship, company culture, etc.
P.S. if you do a good job arranging your life (as most software engineers absolutely have the means to do) you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life.
Edit: full disclosure, I’m not an employer but I sympathize and spent a lot of time thinking about these things as a scrum master, trying to mitigate some of these problems in 2020. Now I’m not an SM and largely work independently, but I love being able to walk to the office every day (30 minute commute). I used to do hybrid but now I’m really enjoying the separation and am loathe to work from home, except on weekends.
I’m also an Urbanism nerd and don’t want to see cities revert to the 70s-era trend, which is clearly and noticeably happening, destroying decades of progress on livability. Unfortunately there’s a collective action problem; people will miss having nice cities to visit, but don’t make the connection that there is a “use it or lose it” aspect to great shared spaces.