We still had cubes. Because you have to have cubes.
And of course the Edifice Complex held - we were sold before everything on the building was done.
[1] http://assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com/thumbs/nqfIhMYO.jpg
[2] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/i-worked-in-a-vr-...
If people stop and consider VR desktops might be a serious improvement over the current open office hell.
You can be relatively impervious to visual and audio distractions not of your own design.
They will probably allow even more work from home as the technology of avatar visuals improve enough that people feel like high bandwidth personal communication between people is possible and comfortable.
The darkside is that VR and AR have very high ability to monitor your moment to moment attention.
They have very high ability to completely control your environment without your input.
If management controls that, it will be an evil thing.
Either a heaven or a hell, depends on workers taking ownership.
I like to stay positive but given how little backbone workers have shown in being herded into open offices, I'm not sure how it will go.
[0] https://www.media.mit.edu/speech/papers/1979/bolt_1979_spati...
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/24/3040959/dataland-mits-70s-...
I feel lucky that at the LA Google office I only have a dozen people in my glass-walled pen and that I am not out in the general cubicle areas.
The article does chronicle the sad perversion into cubicle sterility.
