I think we should identify that there's two separate main concerns people have over WFH: (1) the loss of fidelity of moving business information. Informal and

I think we should identify that there's two separate main concerns people have over WFH: (1) the loss of fidelity of moving business information. Informal and unscheduled discussions contributed a lot to movement of information within a business, triggered innovation in unexpected places, and losing these conversations had a big impact. In addition I think it's fair to say talking to someone in person is almost always more effective than talking over the internet (body language, no delay, etc etc) (2) the loss of the the social connection that all humans crave in some amount (even extreme introverts like myself). Scheduled online meetings might be effective for keeping in touch with people you knew before the pandemic, but it's not as effective as office chitchat for building a connection with people you haven't already met. I can't even imagine how lonely it must feel starting a new job when the entirety of your relationships are built over zoom and slack. I don't know the answer for (1), but (2) is something that I'm confident we could find an answer to in a more remote world. For all of history, humanity has been able to build communities and fulfill the social itch, long before the industrial revolution (i.e. before most workers commuted to a shared workplace), so I'm confident we could do it again if the world continues moving work remote post-pandemic. Actually, I'm hopeful we could do it better than in a commuting world: in a non-commuting world, individuals should be much more invested in their community, their neighborhood and their neighbors, something that from my understanding has been on the decline for the past century or so (coinciding with the rise of the automobile, the rise of the 2 working parent household, and the fall of the multi-generation household).