> if WFH was just as good for the company, and more attractive to employees, we should see a boom in WFH-first companies, which does not seem to be happening.

In this economy, you can't even make a company, let alone profess their benefits. This is all intentional.

If/when the economy recovers and funding is flowing around, I predict we will see this huge boom in WFH companies, especially with startups.

Unfortunately, larger corps are seeing "WFH" as yet another attempt to offshore as much labor as possible. I can't guarantee after this ebb that top tech companies will be begging for talent the same way they were last decade.

▲ nickff 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If WFH is a good deal for both sides (in a particular industry), I would expect new entrants to use it as a competitive advantage against existing businesses (likely hiring away talented staff). I agree that web-tech business formation seems depressed, but WFH should eventually win the day if it is all that advocates say.

I expect WFH will expect, while remaining relatively niche, much like worker co-operatives.

▲

watwut 4 days ago | parent [-]

Small companies use it as competitive advantage against existing businesses.

The market is fully captured and you do not win by having better productivity or by being able to attract better people. You win by attracting a lot of capital and by being able to eventually create quasi monopoly. You think hot AI companies are somehow productive? They are in massive looses. Or that all those corporations have super productive workforce? Anyone who worked there knows they dont.

The econ 101 thought experiments are just that - thought experiments about ideal world. They have much less to do with how actual companies operate.

	▲	jamespo 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		What market is fully captured? Do you have sources for that?

▲ slaw 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Economy will not recover to hire people. Tech companies will not be begging as all jobs will be in India and China.

▲ throwaway2037 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

    > all jobs will be in India

I have been hearing this since the mid 1990s. If this were true, why does Silicon Valley exist at all? Why hasn't it all moved to somewhere cheap in India?

▲ jimbob45 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Trump will outright win 2026 if he bans H-1Bs after this RTO charade and neither party would be able to oppose such a ban without fatal public outcry. With India choosing Russia over the US, there would be very little political backlash to wrecking their economy too. Huge unemployed force in the US to fill the gap too.

That is to say, if H-1Bs aren’t banned now, in what seem to be the most favorable possible conditions in history for such a thing, then they’re never getting banned.

	▲	wkat4242 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Banning H1Bs and RTO does not stop companies from simply opening an office in Bangalore and hiring thousands of people there. That's what my employer did.
	▲	esseph 5 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Of course it's never getting banned
	▲	throwsep10 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]