420
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
420 points (96.7% liked)
Asklemmy
43027 readers
2015 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Look: a lot of companies would suffer from an office real estate crash.
And most importantly, funds invested in all of the above.
People who own businesses also own stocks in other people's businesses. Meaning they all fall and rise together. Trying to keep the "work commute" and "office rental" industries alive is just an attempt on the part of those who hold capital to keep their portfolios growing.
In secret, they are probably also trying to hedge their bets, diversify and make themselves immune to the coming collapse. They'll try to position themselves and their capital in such a way so that the working class is the only group hurt when it happens.
But in public? They are not going to devalue their assets by standing by, complacent, as an office apocalypse approaches.
I think what they don't realize is that it's basically Pandora's box at this point, and what's been let out is a ticking time bomb. Unless something changes, remote work will always be on the cards now and will probably always be preferable.
Maybe they're focused on playing for time so they can insure their assets and move to hedge funds that are shorting all of the above industries? I don't know investing that well.
Yup. A lot of companies benefiting off the inefficiency of commuting.
I really feel like this makes the most sense. It beats out all the other arguments.
Middle managers need more control? Big bosses never care that much about what middle managers say, why now? And across tons of companies? Seems silly. Middle managers are notoriously ineffective.
They want to retain control/keep you tired? Maybe, but it would take a large conspiracy coordinated between the execs, which seems like a stretch. There would need to be a massive Illuminati-esque organization like that Stonecutters episode from The Simpsons.
But as always, it comes back to "follow the money." The people making the decision will lose money somehow, so they are trying not to lose, or to minimize losses. All board of directors people have multiple investments and interests, so of course they are trying to make the best of their situation. They own part of the IT company renting the space, but also have investment in office retail space and some local businesses. If the office life drives an area to stay alive, its dying will shift the money away from all their investments. As usual, they are making those decisions without giving a shit about anything but money and their own interests.