Some of the most important software I use in my day to day work (neovim, git, alacritty, plus all the CLTs that assist me) are all created in distributed teams

Some of the most important software I use in my day to day work (neovim, git, alacritty, plus all the CLTs that assist me) are all created in distributed teams around the world. How do we know that saying in-person innovation isn't a post hoc justification? You can't mandate innovation, you can't order innovation, innovation only comes from individuals; I doubt they would have been less innovative if they worked in person or remotely, and we'll unlikely ever know since we can't run a perfect experiment to verify this. The next wave of game changing companies will be solely due to individuals being at the right place at the right time, whether that's remotely or in person I doubt that one aspect would be critical.