It's not odd at all that people in a similar situation tend to act the same way, particularly when they can see how the others act and realise that following the crowd is the best way to not get fired.

Many companies would benefit financially by reducing their office footprint and thereby paying less rent. The idea that boards everywhere would sabotage their own companies to appease commercial real estate investors is tinfoil hat level stuff.

Yes, they do. The board member croneyism keeping the working man down is a bit of a simple minded reddit fantasy - in the real world, public companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. They don’t serve the interests of some hidden cabal.

If you notice that companies make similar decisions as a result of changing market trends (a global pandemic, for instance) it’s probably because those decisions were deemed the most financially sound. They weren’t colluding to screw over employees.