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Comment by seti0Cha | Hacker News Reader

They provide rentable office space for companies that need office space. What alternative are you suggesting? Companies build their own offices? Builders retain ownership and become landlords? The banks become landlords? Companies just don't have offices?

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Curiously the most obvious option is missing from your list.

Companies buy offices.

Sometimes companies do buy offices. But very often they don't, either because they don't want to or can't afford to. Sometimes they buy offices, then rent out space to other companies. Sometimes they sign long term leases, but then change their plans and sublease to others. It's not at all clear to me what people are arguing for here. Companies rent office space because they've judged it the best use of their resources. They aren't being victimized by some landlord class, they're making resource allocation choices.

In my very limited exposer, companies often don't buy buildings because they can't.

Somebody else owns the building and is only interested in renting it out.

What is your exposure then? I don't think I've ever worked at a place that had any interesting in owning the office building they were located in. Usually, they are only interested in part of a building, and they don't want the bother of renting out the rest. In fact, as I said elsewhere in this thread, I worked at a place that built and sold a building, then leased it back, because they specifically did not want to own the real estate. They preferred to have a building management company take on the risk, taxes, and mortgage burden and were willing to pay a bit more in order to have that outcome.

> Companies just don't have offices?

That seems to be what the market is choosing, yes.

But coworking spaces are another possibility.

We'll see how far the whole working from home thing goes, but there are a number of types of business for which it is impractical (e.g. anything that requires expensive or bulky equipment) and many people prefer to work together in person. As for co-working spaces...co-working spaces I've seen have offered offices and suites in addition to shared space. I worked out of a private office in one for a while because I wanted to use my own equipment and didn't want to schlep it in and out every day. That same reasoning applies to larger companies.

>But coworking spaces are another possibility.

Co-working spaces I'm thinking of are still ultimately rented from commercial landlords. I'm not talking about the workers paying for the use of a temporary desk. It's the "brandname" of the co-working space that is still paying a lease to the landlord. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what example you had in mind.

I'm aware that the big open office floorplans shared with 3 other companies is probably the only office environment that most HN'ers have worked in, but it's far from the norm. Most mature companies prefer to have actual private offices for their knowledge workers.

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