Interesting way of putting that perspective. I have been trying to put my finger on the whole remote working issue for a while. What you expressed is one aspect to the issue, but I also think that it is probably just an intermediary symptom, a phantom / false cause if you will. Personally I think we would see a lot more remote working and even a social revolution if at very least the incentives for physical office space were removed from tax and accounting policy. Remote working is really a difficult nut to crack that has a significant cleft between it's potential and present reality.
I guarantee that the company that can scale up effective remote working that has severed the tether to co-located organizational structure will be wildly successful. Unfortunately, I think it will also have major social repercussions similar to the impact that autonomous transportation has the potential for causing.
For me, it's a combination of things... I'm far more distracted at home, and it's much easier to communicate face-to-face when you can have, for example a white board to draw out discussions on.
Aside from that, hangouts, lync and the like do make communicating remotely very nice. I've wanted for years the ability to actually share a project session with someone via Visual Studio (or something similar)... so that you can work in the same visual space... if you're on the same file, you can see eachother's edits/changes real time... if you're in other files, you can just flow...
I don't think it all requires that people be in physical proximity, but there are advantages to being a closer team. I often find that 3-4 developers in the same room can dramatically outperform teams that are disconnected from each other. But then again, I think that if your project can't be distilled into units of work/services worked on by 3-4 developers you're doing something wrong.
Could you explain what you mean about the incentives from tax and accounting policy? Are you saying that tax benefits for having office space are richer than the actual expense of renting that office space?
Essentially, there seem to be significant tax, accounting, and general financial incentives associated with office space and expenditures that come with it. Take, for example, during the recession, special corporate tax rules were set in place that rewarded and essentially subsidized capital expenditures and allowed for accelerated write-downs.
Those are not necessarily solely financial incentives, but they function to compound and combine with already established systems of corporate organization, personnel structures, and general status quo operations and processes. In that scenario, the co-located work paradigm was not only supported and strengthened where remote working was not, but it also set an expectation that thar be government breast milk in tumultuous times.
I am no corporate tax, accounting, or financial expert; but what I can say is that it seems to be the forest that can't be seen for all the trees.
In the USA, you can deduct your business expenses (including building rental) from your profits for tax purposes. This creates a huge incentive to rent, as it's basically free - the company is basically paying part of their tax payment to their landlord.
I guarantee that the company that can scale up effective remote working that has severed the tether to co-located organizational structure will be wildly successful. Unfortunately, I think it will also have major social repercussions similar to the impact that autonomous transportation has the potential for causing.