That's the real reason why WFH faces so much resistance. When people are done with their work they can just play with their kid or do what they want, and it becomes obvious how much, using Foucault's analogy, of a prison aimed to discipline the office is.
As far as I can tell the real reasons are some combination of:
* Working physically next to people generally is more efficient. Of course there are some people like Knuth who need to be undisturbed for 6 hours, but for most people the ease of communicating in the real world is a big time saver. It really is.
* The benefit of face to face meetings is bigger the more meetings you have and the more talking to people your job involves. Guess how many meetings the people making these decisions have...
* You're less likely to spend time doing house chores and whatever. I generally do a solid day's work when WFH but even I sometimes just mow the lawn or whatever. If I was at work I would probably just read HN on my phone instead but I obviously hide that better. So this isn't a good reason IMO but it is a reason.
* Companies don't like paying for fancy offices that nobody is using.
* It isn't the company that pays for the time and cost of your commute, so to them that is not a downside.
I wouldn't ever work for a company that didn't let me WFH again. The lack of commute is just too good.
But I do understand the real reasons why high up managers don't like it.
No one is forcing them to? That sounds like an argument for WFH, not against.
I expect new companies will probably avoid getting large offices though.