I dont think you can generalise this way, its is also dependent on where you are living or what your commute looks like.
As an example, right now I am living and working in Amsterdam. My commute is 10 minutes by bike or 25min walk. I generally prefer to work in the office since I like the free exercise, context switch, and my office is also nice. However if my commute was longer than 60 mins, and in a car or public transport, I would want to work remotely.
Same. I’ve been working remotely for 23 years. I love working in an office when I get the opportunity to. The context switch is what I miss the most. It’s a 30 minute bike commute downtown for me. I had a chance to work in an office downtown several years ago and it was one of my favorite experiences.
And before anyone asks, yes, happily married, kids at home, excellent home office, healthy social life.
Great, but it's a pretty isolating idea that you should spend all your time with the same few people. It's nice and healthy to context-switch and spend some time around different people.
Pointing out that this isn't OP -- took me a minute, I was confused by the tone switch from 'there's nuance here and its conditional based on current circumstances' to chiding of a position no ones advanced.
And I'm very much RTO crew! Who is calm about it because of exactly that conditionality on current circumstances.
Why is it not possible? There have been countless times where co-workers have booked in time on the calendar (for observability for the team) to meet up with a friend for lunch, or to even meet up after work and support local businesses around their home.
Re: "1 on 1s walking around the block and seeing this cool cafe that closes at 2pm?"
That does sound nice. All of my in office jobs were sitting at my desk staring at a computer for 8 hours. No one was walking around the block. :-) But that was over ten years ago.
They edited to make it less confusing / sarcastic, tl;dr they're lecturing people, with a family, who don't want to RTO, who think you only need to socialize with family
As an example, right now I am living and working in Amsterdam. My commute is 10 minutes by bike or 25min walk. I generally prefer to work in the office since I like the free exercise, context switch, and my office is also nice. However if my commute was longer than 60 mins, and in a car or public transport, I would want to work remotely.