trepX

WSL has many issues which are not getting fixed, and rather classified as "won't fix, as out of scope". Further, WSL isn't supported on Windows Server, which is really annoying if you're dealing with M$ only infrastructure at your company and hoping to use WSL as an alternative way of deployment.

It's basically just a "cheapish" way of keeping Devs on Windows, preemting any semblance of competition by Linux desktop environments from forming. They know they lost the server market, but they can cling on to the Desktop environment market as much as possible, at the same time eating into apple's market share in this specific power user market. Not that Apple cares that much anyway, they're content with selling iPhones.

I use FF to help keep the browser "market" competitive. We don't want to end up in the same situation as early 2ks where html standardisation was essentially "internet explorer compatibility", and if you wanted to use newer features as a web dev you had to put multiple implementations, one for IE, and one for the others, as in the browsers actually implementing the specifications correctly. Now MS didn't exactly do nefarious things with their market power, it was rather neglect, but it damaged the industry nevertheless. For Google, in today's market, I'd anticipate they would use it to make it very difficult to block ads etc. Internet will become less free.

I'd say to you all: get used to bombshells dropping! At some point the investor pyramid scheme will go crashing down. It might be now. All those companies were on borrowed time. Until investors realised that "data" isn't valuable on its own - it's what you make of it. There needs to be a product that generates revenue. Spoiler alert, it is hard to come up with a business plan that takes plain usage data and makes the technical challenges worthwhile to squeeze money from it. I can feel it myself as data scientist. The honeymoon's over, investors want to see ROI.

I mean this cycle will probably recover in a few years when the markets recover but still - some lessons stick

I can emphasize with both. As someone who manages a team my job has become more difficult. It is harder to engage with people and also to navigate corp politics, as networking became less easy. Where you just used to have a coffee with someone (to get to know them, talk in a more relaxed setting), now I'll schedule a meeting.

And I have to schedule it, as it is really hit and miss if someone is available. A scheduled meeting is... Different. It feels official, purposeful. People avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary. The amount of times I have to remind them to talk with each other, and involve person X and Y in the discussion, is amazing. It's like there is a huge barrier to click the call button on zoom. It's like an intrusion to someone's home.

Which it is. There is something less social about calling someone up and self inserting into their day in their home. When in office this doesn't matter, we're in a public setting. The only thing that suffers may be productivity, but what suffers now, I don't know. Maybe the interaction they're currently having with their kid.

Now, personally I love working from home. Just getting back the 2hrs per day of commute is awesome. I can schedule my day the way I want. So I'd agree it would be a hard sell to go back full-time, even if it would make aspects of my job easier.

So I decided on 1 office day every 2 weeks. It is workable, and I can tell may people are starved for physical interaction. Noone gets much actual work done that day, everyone just talks with each other, goes to the whiteboard to explain stuff etc. It's like an outlet. And it gives me an argument in front of senior management why it's a bad idea to outsource our jobs to a 3rd world country.

So yeah bottom line: you may not actually always want full remote. The next step after selling their office space, is outsourcing your job to a cheaper country. That may or may not work as they expect, but they'll try anyway and you know it. If you're remote, you're not an actual person to the decision makers, just a number on a balance sheet. A number that's too big.