They all market their "networking" opportunities and "hip" work spaces. Do serious workers eveb want that? We have a good idea what a "serious" WeWork looks li

They all market their "networking" opportunities and "hip" work spaces. Do serious workers eveb want that? We have a good idea what a "serious" WeWork looks like already: Regus. WeWork occupies what seems to be a bit of a weird niche: they are almost as casual as taking your laptop to Starbucks and they seem to go out of their way to provide distractions from work too, whereas the Regus experience is just like having a more-expensive version of a real office. It's a private area, you have the key, dedicated network connectivity, support from "the building" when you need it. I see companies use Regus to bootstrap themselves into a new city while they hunt for real space for example, and Regus seems happy with that as a use case, whereas WeWork would like you to stay there. Right now the gig economy is very fashionable and WeWork is riding that trend but this is too tied up with both fashion and politics to make the future of it very clear. Are people really going to want to spend their entire careers in a giant Starbucks, what happens if the tax code changes to make freelancing unattractive (e.g. IR35 in the UK)? What if WeWork becomes the corporate behemoth and people do go back to actually hip independent coffee shops, or coop work spaces? What if some technological development starts to favour large companies again? Armies of freelancers are fine if you are building websites but could you make a biotech or a space firm or green energy firm or whatever out of freelancers in cow-orking spaces? I dunno.