And frankly, 5 hours a day isn't that much. It's perfectly fine is some people wants work life balance, but you will do more by working more, and if you're ambitious, it's hard to avoid putting the hours at some critical moments in your life.

Once I've logged out of my work account it has never happened that I'd log back in the same evening, open the VPN, restart the browser etc just for a quick check of emails or chat messages.

My own anecdotal experience: I'm on the spectrum, albeit pretty high functioning, and diagnosed ADHD Inattentive type. WfH has really allowed me to excel in my work like I never have before, especially in the early days.

Working in office is exhausting for me. I have a lot of tics/stims that I have to try and mask when around others, the lighting is usually horrible and distracting, open office plans or cubicles are a sensory nightmare. Just trying to mask alone is exhausting enough that I can't focus on work at all, and my performance suffers from it, and I get burned out really fast.

Now, I get to be comfortable in my own skin at home. I have my office set up exactly how I want, I can wear whatever I want, and at my job there's no expectation of cameras on for meetings. One of the best benefits, for me, is almost everything is done via written communication now. I take very few phone calls, and outside of meetings, all communication is done over chat or email. There's no one to just barge into my workspace to ask a question, interrupting my focus, which would essentially ruin the entire day's of productivity for me.

I also have a delayed circadian rhythm, and having to commute can be dangerous. There are many times that I just can't wake up enough in the morning to be alert enough to drive, even after a full night of restful sleep. I still have this problem, but with WfH I no longer have to drive, and there's some flexibility to start whenever I want as long as I'm on the first meeting of the day or there's no urgent tickets waiting for me (I'm not a dev, I'm a sysadmin).

With in office work, I can ask for accommodations, but it's difficult and has a stigma to ask "I need my own office, with a door, with plenty of natural light, my own control of overhead lighting, and for people to not interrupt me. Oh and I need flexibility to be able to come in whenever I want within a 2 hour window because some mornings I just can't wake up enough to be safe driving."

Lastly, there's no pressure to "fake work" or pretend to be productive beyond my own limits. Like one of the commenters earlier said, most people especially in knowledge work are probably only truly productive 4 to maybe 5 hours of the work day. I'm totally dead after about 4 hours of real work, so an 8 hour work day just doesn't make sense to me. When at home I can go do other things when I'm done with my work for the day, and just have alerts on my phone for tickets or calls/chat messages, I don't have to stay at my desk and pretend to work.

So yeah, WfH has been a godsend for me and I couldn't ever go back to in office work. I have no ambitions for promotions or management, so I plan to stick with this job basically until I retire so long as they continue to allow WfH. If that doesn't pan out, not sure what I'll do. While everyone else was down about the COVID lockdowns, it was basically some of the best times of my life and I was the happiest I've been in a while. WfH, less crowds, less traffic, and grocery stores had sensory hours.

On the whole, remote work gave workers more agency. That highlighted that the control that some layers of management weakened in some ways. It also highlights that poor processes are more easily exploited. Companies don’t vet their employees well where that is important, but not mandated by customer contracts… thus we’ve learned that many frauds are trivially accomplished if you never see people.

On the flip, less remote may ultimately be in the employees interest. If you’re some high level JPMC employee making $500k from your ski cottage in Vermont… well let’s say your NYC salary doesn’t reflect the market, and if you can succeed in Vermont, you can probably be replaced by someone making $100k in Iowa, $50k in Latin America or less in Asia.

The loudest voices on HN and other places about the awesomeness of remote work are really celebrating their success arbitrage… which always cuts both ways.

There are plenty of smaller start ups that are remote only. There are also companies boot strapping so they again are not making news with funding rounds.

TLDR Just because something is not in the news does not mean it does not exist.

Oftentimes profit means hiring more people, not pay existing people more.