One possible reason might be commercial real estate investments made by decision makers, who need these properties to remain valuable.
CRE firm lobbies local politicians that remote work is killing Main Street.
Local politicians attach tax breaks/incentives for companies with office workers.
Companies mandate RTO to save some tax money while unwittingly being a toadie for commercial real estate.
The key difference being that the people mandating RTO aren't biased because of their own investments in CRE.
Has that actually happened?