Remote can work for some people, and some companies, but it’s got plenty of challenges. Not the least of which being the cultural and legal structures that come along with “W2” employment.
One system that seems to work well is those workers and businesses who approach the problem from a more entrepreneurial perspective. Remote work can be just fine if it’s understood more as an independent contract, the terms of which can be negotiated by both parties and renewed, or not, by either party at the end of the term of the agreement. But that has problems of its own, not the least of which being the massive friction created by managing a bunch of 1099 contracts, and the efforts in many blue states to effectively ban a lot of the simplest 1099 agreements (eg California AB5 testing).
It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out in Amazon’s case, for sure.
Every business from different—but if a business was able to function reasonably well with work-at-home employees they are taking major risks by trying to force them into the office.
This is not the old days where company loyalty to employees generated employee loyalty to companies.
The odds of working more than (say) ten years or more for a tech company has got to be less than 50%—due to choices by either party.