Remote work is a great idea but permanent remote work requires a lot more officification of the home. It is great if you're single or have a large house with attendants. It breaks down when there are kids screaming in the background or pets barking or a washing machine spinning.

“the company says employees should live within a commuting distance to their assigned office, where they are expected to show up three days a week”

If managing a home office was “broken down”, they wouldn’t be allowing two days a week WFH. A pretty reasonable compromise. If two parents each had this option, and they could schedule the WFH days, then the kids only need to be covered one day a week. If 2.5 days/week, then one parent could always be at home...they should have considered this option more seriously and sold it as a Bay Area standard to other firms. Kids actually do come first...

Makes a long commute a lot more tolerable as well. If you can afford a house with a longer commute, a home office in a house is a lot more manageable. Any reasonable sized house wouldn’t require competing with washing machine noise. Consider active noise reduction in the office(s) for the kids and dogs (why isn’t that option talked up more). Or more effective parenting, cf. the French.

Hope they keep pushing the envelope on more WFH and even remote work. I could see permanent remote work being a problem from a non-Five Eyes country from a security standpoint. Would love to know the issues they actually had with permanent remote work...they were better positioned to make it happen than anyone else. We (almost the whole world) needs to know exactly why that didn’t work for them. A failure in management?