I think we're going to see a massive knowledge gap start to manifest itself within the next 1-3 years. Employees that are junior or started during WFH are going to find it difficult to stack up against senior engineers who have been around since before WFH.
Now also consider all of the college students who received a substantially subpar learning experience during the pandemic. My team is already seeing the effects of this when trying to hire new grads.
This strawman about middle managers in the WFH conversation is exhausting and annoying. Do you really think middle managers are some evil scum-sucking lizards that actually enjoy things like hour long commutes and wearing uncomfortable clothes? They're people just like you are, and they enjoy sitting at home in their pajamas just as much as you do.
Maybe, just maybe the issue is that middle managers have actual, legitimate reasons that WFH isn't a universally good thing. Contrary to what you may think, not every worker in tech is a high-performing star that produces flawless code if you just leave them alone in their home office. A lot of employees are lazy and will take advantage of the reduced oversight to slack off, a lot of employees are people who need constant hands-on mentoring or direction, and a lot of employees are just simply more productive when there's someone to impress nearby.
So while I respect that you might be the perfect worker bee who does whatever work is assigned with no oversight or hand-holding required, most employees are not that, and in-person oversight/mentoring (and if in-person oversight can't happen, get ready for increase monitoring on your work laptop usage) legitimately is necessary.
>compared to their buzzing open-plan desk in the office, making them more productive.
I think this point gets really overblown by people who put too much of a tech lens on things. I've been in many, many different offices (I'm a consultant) and open plan offices are very rare outside of tech, and on top of that, most non-tech workers do not see "more quiet and focused" as a good thing. Most of my non-tech clients have constant back-and-forth dialog in the office, and removing that has, at least in my experience with these companies, made them less productive.
This is irrelevant, though. You aren't paid based on your output, you're paid based on how much you cost.
Think of how much you pay for water. In place A, you might pay $0.02 per gallon of water. You move to place B, and they only charge $0.01 gallon of water. Are you going to keep paying $0.02/gallon? The value that the water provides to you hasn't changed, but why would you keep paying $0.02 when you could get it for $0.01?
In FB's view, you aren't any different. Even if you provide the same value, there's no reason to keep paying you $300k when they could pay you (or someone who replaces you) $150k.
Now also consider all of the college students who received a substantially subpar learning experience during the pandemic. My team is already seeing the effects of this when trying to hire new grads.