The productivity is tangential at best to this matter; the discourse around WFH has long devolved into primitive drivel for/against freedom precisely because abstract "freedom" is all that Americans care about. (I don't think WFH is as big in Europe, at least based on my experience—everywhere I worked in Europe has overwhelmingly been in-office.) I get the argument that American cities are really sparse, and sometimes people have to commute a long while, etc etc. but I don't believe that it's the deciding factor. I think it's FAR simpler than that; in view of covid, all companies subscribed to WFH policy, and workers (quite naively) interpreted it as +freedom. The companies are now subscribing to RTO policies, and it's simply read as -freedom. That's it. People find it offensive whenever they're deprived of some extra options, choices, etc. It's nice not having to go to office all the time, but it's in of itself much nicer if you CAN choose not to, isn't it? In my view, that's what it boils down to.