The same argument could be made about the cost of a commute, though.

I had a co-worker who rented a small office, close to his home. Because he lives far away from any larger towns he was able to rent an office for $200 per month, but he shares the space with his partner who also works from "home", so it's effectively $100 per person. Our employer paid for the office space, but not for the cleaning, because it was still cheaper than paying for him being at the office every day (we where short on space).

Depending on where you live, and your living situation renting a small office can be really cheap. In my local area I've seen private office rent for as little as $120 per month, but around $200 is more realistic.

Yes. Every type of employment puts undocumented costs at the employees.

But not all types of employment puts the same amount of costs. Those vary widely. And the possibility for the employee to optimize them also varies.

And all the comments up to now are still ignoring the elephant on the room and didn't touch the opportunity cost of having your entire family work on the same geographic area, and the insane housing costs on the few small areas where a family can do that.

Yes, I pay for that - and I do it gladly. It's roughly 7% of my salary.

in other words, "office space provides him with negative utility"