I have a theory about RTO that is not so much about psychology, but rather is about pricing power. WFH creates another, national and in some cases internationa

I have a theory about RTO that is not so much about psychology, but rather is about pricing power. WFH creates another, national and in some cases international job market alongside every local job market. A lot of local job markets are captive labor pools, because of family ties, low cost of living, and inertia. It is an easier coordination problem for a small number of local employers to set wages for that market than it is to coordinate setting national wages. WFH makes it harder to have pricing power on local wages. Even if remote employers adjust wages for local cost of living, those wages are still often higher than local employers' wages, or the benefits are better, or the work is more interesting. Many local employers cannot compete for talent in a WFH environment. By breaking apart a national labor market into many local markets, the problem of managing wages becomes a more tractable problem.