> solution is have a shorter commute and live closer to the office

With a short commute, a private office, and environment conducive to both focused work and collaboration as required, I imagine a lot more folks would be happy to RTO. However, this is not the reality for most who are asked to waste hours commuting (or uproot families to move closer) to sit surrounded by noise and distraction.

I suspect “I miss when everyone was at the office 5 days a week” is behind many of these RTO mandates, and I am not sure the sacrifice made by people (like you) who don’t get to see colleagues quite as often is balanced against the sacrifice made by folks who have to uproot their whole lives or waste hours per day commuting.