(2) feels weird to me; if the work is getting done, is there an issue? Does it matter if I spend 4 hours or 2 hours on a design doc, if the result is a good design doc?
At home, you can just pick up the Xbox controller and say it took you 4 hours.
I like the comfort of WFH, and there are plenty of people (myself included) that are responsible enough to handle it, but the problem is that the average person isn't. And we all pay for it.
That's a very confident statement to make. My company is very much happy with remote working. 50% of my team aren't even in the country. Most other teams are the same. I don't feel like I'm paying any price for that.
And I agree that remote work is perfectly possible with a good culture and responsible employees, but most companies don't really have the culture or hiring practices that optimize for that.
You're presupposing your conclusion. I don't believe remote work is less successful. I think this is driven from angles such as:
* Managers who have made their career by visibility, struggling to adapt to a new normal
* A way to get rid of staff without paying severance
* Pressure from certain types of politician who have made up their mind (regardless of any evidence) that remote working is harmful
And others
It really is a shame that for once it felt like labour had something going their way, and somehow the leaders of capital have convinced us to fight each other on this, while they take it away again.