It’s not hard to afford Bay Area rent if one partner is still employed in tech, especially if they are older and have savings or home equity to cash in on.

The article you linked to seems to say only that employers have been unsuccessful at enforcing 100% in-office work. It does not say that people have been successful at keeping their 100% remote jobs in other states and far-off locations.

Overall, we seem to be reaching a compromise where many are forced to live within commuting distance of their office but aren’t necessarily there every day. This compromise is what is pushing up rents from what I am seeing among my network.

In other words, “remote” and “hybrid” are not at all the same but you are using the terms interchangeably. You can’t live in Idaho and commute to SF three days a week without major inconvenience and expense.

Maybe you aren’t aware, but house prices skyrocketed in many locations (like Idaho and Florida) during the pandemic because of an exodus of Californians who were told that they could keep their high-paying jobs and live almost anywhere. The tide has reversed now.

As for interviews, I have read multiple Hacker News comments from people saying that their solution to rampant AI cheating has been to make interviews in-person again. So I’m not convinced that you’re right about that either…