Open office is about economics and limits choice. Privacy does not preclude the freedom to socialize when required or work temporarily in common spaces for some

Open office is about economics and limits choice. Privacy does not preclude the freedom to socialize when required or work temporarily in common spaces for some project. The other way there is no choice. Most of us who have been to boarding schools have fond memories but that does not mean we prefer to live in dorms our whole life. Will the person negotiating deals or employee salaries be in a open office? No because there are certain kind of jobs that require privacy. Similarly creative thinking is not a group but solitary activity that requires privacy and warrants private space and programming and creating things from scratch is creative. Either the company does not perceive the work as creative or fails to respect its employees work needs. Usually these decisions are taken in arbitrary ways by a few folks in management who hang on to their privacy. And once these decisons are made it's difficult to reverse. Theoretically in capitalism if workers prefer private cabins companies who continue to offer them stand to attract a higher quality and volume of candidates but in the real world even before you can exercise that 'capitalist choice' its taken away from you by the race to the bottom, so you are effectively left with no choice.