Yeah, and while one's "work friends" may not be the perfect kind of friends (otherwise they tend to migrate to being "regular friends", no?), they have on important property to me: they're around during work and they punctuate work with social/human interactions. Sometimes those interactions are annoying and disrupting, but my god I'm realizing how incredibly important they are.

I bet if remote work became the norm, many people would co-rent shared offices with their friends, relatives, neighbors, etc.

Social interactions at work without the burden of hierarchy, work etiquette, etc. That would be the dream.

A partner, kids, a family, those might last longer than work friends who will likely move on from the friendship once they change jobs. I used to be in a similar situation (living in an expensive city, my only friends were work friends, and home was a lonely miserable place). Started doing remote work, earning the same amount of money, own a pretty decent mansion, and have permanent friends and people around me. Isolation or not it doesnt really bother me. The notion that for a decent career one should sacrifice everything is a trap. While we slave away in large corps, earning money, our employers pretty much already do what i said i am. One can still be a great engineer or whatever without a shallow life.