But I disagree with "f2f for god knows what reason.". Face-to-face is really important to lots of people. That group of people is relatively less well-represented in HN comment sections, where lots of hacker types who are motivated by the work and would prefer to avoid socialization hang out, but it's a huge factor for lots of people.

I, for one, am considering changing jobs to find one with an office as soon as possible if my workplace doesn't go back to having a physical office, which it looks like it won't.

(Obviously things can get trickier across national borders, but that falls under the "with no issues" clause.)

A lot of people seem to operate under the assumption that there's a huge pool of talented engineers outside the tech major metros, eager to work for cheap salaries.

I just don't see it all. The reality is almost all talented engineers are currently being paid tech industry salaries. Yes, there's a lot of IT workers making $85k at regional banks in suburban Ohio. But the vast majority of these workers are not anywhere near skilled enough to step into a typical SV role. (I've seen the codebases of Ohio regional banks... they certainly wouldn't pass review at Google.) There's a huge shortage of software engineers-- everywhere, not just in the Bay Area.

Imagining that FAANG giants are just gonna hire a bunch of cheap IT workers from middle America, is like imagining that Goldman Sachs is going to replace their investment bankers with loan officers Missouri.