Plenty of people thought that a lot of changes from COVID were permanent. Pre-pandemic, there was a slow shift towards things like e-commerce - the % of purchas

Plenty of people thought that a lot of changes from COVID were permanent. Pre-pandemic, there was a slow shift towards things like e-commerce - the % of purchases made online was growing steadily for years. Everyone thought that covid accelerated that trend, and few predicted it would return to in-store purchases. In 2023, we're basically at an equivalent point compared to if the pandemic didn't happen and that steady growth continued - that's not an obvious outcome. Things like remote work, many people absolutely loved it, and it changed how people can work and hire. It had far-reaching affects, and many thought it'd last. Not everyone was convinced, of course, but we had proven it works for at least some conditions. As Facebook recently announced, it may not work as well, but for many organizations, the savings is better than the decrease in productivity. Regarding a lot of the crazy tech-industry changes like salaries, employment demand etc, yeah I totally didn't think it'd last either. Same with the affects of 0% interest rates (not that I really invested any differently).