Remote work is amazing for work-life balance and job satisfaction...if you have an established/high-paying job with an awesome home working space in a town or city you're happy living in and have a strong social network outside of work (or spend less time on work to spend more time on life, which is totally fine!).
If you live in a 1bd apartment/flat with roommates and your working space is also your bedroom, kitchen or closet...WFH sucks.
If you have an awesome office setup in your suburban home that's far away from everything because the alternative is worse and more expensive...WFH sucks.
If a big factor of your satisfaction at work comes from working with your work mates, and now all of them are too busy to hang because they have families and commitments and such...WFH sucks.
If you've just graduated college and are starting your first job...WFH DEFINITELY sucks.
The thing that confused me the most about the push for remote work was the mental gymnastics done in response to the obvious (to me) wage suppression that remote work at scale would introduce.
Why would anyone pay $x for an engineer in SFO when they can pay $0.4x for that same engineer in Kansas City?
Why should the engineer from SFO making $x NOT receive $0.4x now that they live in Kansas City (to take advantage of a $0.4x market?)
Okay, so every engineer is worth $x since $x is determined by skill, not locale. If every engineer makes $x, how do we respond to the insanity that normalizing $0.4x markets into $x markets will bring?