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In the USA at least a few problems jump out. - Poor transportation infrastructure and long travel distances outside of dense cities. Given the choice of drivin

by gregjor 10mo ago

In the USA at least a few problems jump out. - Poor transportation infrastructure and long travel distances outside of dense cities. Given the choice of driving 30+ minutes to a remote work center or staying home most people will probably choose to stay home and invest in a home office. - Poor internet infrastructure outside of urban areas. US suburban/rural fiber and 5G deployment lags behind even poor countries such as Thailand and Vietnam. - Cost. Remote work centers, aka co-working spaces, must make money. As WeWork demonstrated, without engaging in fraud and speculation making money with such facilities proves difficult. Most co-working spaces rely on memberships, similar to gyms, probably a hard sell unless people can easily walk or take mass transit in under 30 minutes. Coffee shops and cafes fill the gap since they have another source of revenue. Starbucks have turned into the def facto remote work centers in the USA.

jrowen 10mo ago
Thanks for the comment. - This is why I suggested starting just outside of city centers. For example in a suburb with a decent population of existing commuters. Then gradually expand outward if it makes sense. - Same thing, don't go too far at first. But this could also turn into an advantage as bringing really good service to one centralized location is easier than reaching everyone's home. - WeWork was basically arbitraging subletting for people that could afford to travel around and pay short term rental rates for their office space. This system would be adding real value with the dedicated comms stack. Starbucks is great for a lot of people, particularly freelancers and independents, but in my experience you don't find many traditional team-based 9-5ers there. A power office user is not going to achieve anywhere near the same productivity there day in and day out. This would be trying to emulate more of the Google campus experience that a lot of people value (think day care, gym, hyper-convenient high-quality food options), but is currently only available in very select locations. Coworking is targeted at very small businesses and individuals, to whom the "free" office space of their home or café will go a long way before they want to pay. And they don't get the same network effects from a proper office anyway. This idea would be targeting [employees of] entities that already have to deal with managing office space.
- gregjor 10mo ago
  So shifting the cost of leasing and maintaining local offices to the employees? If a company has enough people in an area to economically fill up a WeWork-type space every day, the company should open an office for their employees to work from. I have worked remote for a long time and I know I would push back on my employer trying to get me to pay for their RTO or traditional team-based 9-5ers.
  - jrowen 10mo ago
    No, the employees would not pay. Think of it like AWS. Each company rents only as many spaces as they need in that area. There would be employees of hundreds of companies working out of the same building. There might be a small Facebook team, an individual Microsoft employee, people from random startups, whatever. Hiring a guy in Alberta? See if you can requisition a space in a nearby center. Don't need to build your own entire office or have that person move or work from home. Having worked at a big company with a nice campus, the remote workers I interacted with largely felt like they missed out on a lot of the perks that were generally considered part of the compensation, even those in satellite offices. The supporting services and amenities would likely not be entirely free in this case, since it's not all sponsored by one employer, but they would still be useful. This whole thing is designed to empower and facilitate remote work....but hey, if Starbucks and the guest room work for you, that's perfectly fine, your employer appreciates the savings.
    - gregjor 10mo ago
      I see. Sounds like most office buildings I have worked in, with some more amenities. I think companies frequently lease space in buildings for branch offices. Sometimes those buildings have restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, other services. Usually not included free, because amenities cost money, someone will have to pay. The perks of big corporate campuses make some sense at scale, to get employees to leave home and work 12 hour days. As a former Silcon Valley worker at a nice campus I know how that works. Many companies have cut back on the perks now that they have a workforce afraid of AI and layoffs. Now they can just order return to office without the goodies. Good luck with the idea. I suspect the WeWork of the future will look more like a bland overpriced Regus office than a Google campus, but who knows.

by gregjor 10mo ago

jrowen 10mo ago

Thanks for the comment. - This is why I suggested starting just outside of city centers. For example in a suburb with a decent population of existing commuters. Then gradually expand outward if it makes sense. - Same thing, don't go too far at first. But this could also turn into an advantage as bringing really good service to one centralized location is easier than reaching everyone's home. - WeWork was basically arbitraging subletting for people that could afford to travel around and pay short term rental rates for their office space. This system would be adding real value with the dedicated comms stack. Starbucks is great for a lot of people, particularly freelancers and independents, but in my experience you don't find many traditional team-based 9-5ers there. A power office user is not going to achieve anywhere near the same productivity there day in and day out. This would be trying to emulate more of the Google campus experience that a lot of people value (think day care, gym, hyper-convenient high-quality food options), but is currently only available in very select locations. Coworking is targeted at very small businesses and individuals, to whom the "free" office space of their home or café will go a long way before they want to pay. And they don't get the same network effects from a proper office anyway. This idea would be targeting [employees of] entities that already have to deal with managing office space.

gregjor 10mo ago
So shifting the cost of leasing and maintaining local offices to the employees? If a company has enough people in an area to economically fill up a WeWork-type space every day, the company should open an office for their employees to work from. I have worked remote for a long time and I know I would push back on my employer trying to get me to pay for their RTO or traditional team-based 9-5ers.
- jrowen 10mo ago
  No, the employees would not pay. Think of it like AWS. Each company rents only as many spaces as they need in that area. There would be employees of hundreds of companies working out of the same building. There might be a small Facebook team, an individual Microsoft employee, people from random startups, whatever. Hiring a guy in Alberta? See if you can requisition a space in a nearby center. Don't need to build your own entire office or have that person move or work from home. Having worked at a big company with a nice campus, the remote workers I interacted with largely felt like they missed out on a lot of the perks that were generally considered part of the compensation, even those in satellite offices. The supporting services and amenities would likely not be entirely free in this case, since it's not all sponsored by one employer, but they would still be useful. This whole thing is designed to empower and facilitate remote work....but hey, if Starbucks and the guest room work for you, that's perfectly fine, your employer appreciates the savings.
  - gregjor 10mo ago
    I see. Sounds like most office buildings I have worked in, with some more amenities. I think companies frequently lease space in buildings for branch offices. Sometimes those buildings have restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, other services. Usually not included free, because amenities cost money, someone will have to pay. The perks of big corporate campuses make some sense at scale, to get employees to leave home and work 12 hour days. As a former Silcon Valley worker at a nice campus I know how that works. Many companies have cut back on the perks now that they have a workforce afraid of AI and layoffs. Now they can just order return to office without the goodies. Good luck with the idea. I suspect the WeWork of the future will look more like a bland overpriced Regus office than a Google campus, but who knows.