I'd love to think that remote working will become more the norm after the current coronapanic ends, but humans will always be humans. Managers want to be able to see "their people" working hard and benefit from the status derived from having an office or at least a larger cubicle. Employees don't want to miss out on promotion opportunities that will surely go to those who show up at the office.

That said, the various downsides mentioned in this article are risible. The idea that billions of tons of CO2 and millions of hours of wasted time can be justified in order to preserve real estate prices and city-center catering jobs is a very curious sort of reasoning indeed. Perhaps we should have banned automobiles because of all the buggy-whip makers cars put out of business? What about banning antibiotics, because they reduce demand for grave-diggers?

Finally, while employees working from home will incur additional costs, these are tax-deductible so the net effect is zero.