RTO is about control and optics, not cost optimisation. It’s management preference, real estate sunk costs, and the illusion of productivity through visibility. Actual delivery of work is the only thing that matters in tech - and remote delivery has already proven itself at scale.
The idea that “physical location is your greatest asset” is backwards. If that were true, San Francisco developers wouldn’t already be competing with contractors in Bangalore and Bucharest. They are - yet the jobs remain, because employers value capability, not postcode.
In short: RTO doesn’t protect American tech workers from global competition. It just wastes time in traffic and props up bad management.
But if every company decided "you know what? Let's go remote!", it will be a matter of months, if not weeks, before every CFO/CEO/Board decides to boost profits by tapping the global talent pool.
The recent delusions to replace software engineers with LLMs is a pretty good indication of where the thinking is vis-a-vis capable engineering
Ok, but what's the real damage? In other words, how many installs and how much money siphoned from users and legit apps?
That is why we started producing corn-based ethanol. It wasn't intended to see people grow corn for it, but rather clean up the unmanageable excesses realized in the due course of growing it for food-based reasons that otherwise would have been left out to rot. In that vein, J is insignificant as it is spent either way.
The problem is that humans aren't very good at moderation. A little ethanol production is quite sensible, but once humans get it into their head something might be sensible in small doses they have to take it to a ridiculous extreme... You see that in everything.
Biofuels in use, keep atmospheric carbon neutral.
Fossil fuels increase atmospheric carbon.
Now, if we did make biofuels and reinject them into the ground, yes it would reduce atmospheric carbon.
But neutral is strictly better than increasing, regardless yes?
No they do not. The accounting generally doesn't take into account the full emissions of agriculture, which for corn is particularly carbon intense. Not to mention the downstream pollution impacts of over fertilization, such as coastal dead zones
Poor implemenation, poor quality control, complacency and the lack of educated personnel all contribute to this.
Meanwhile, the technology is studied, improved and transferred by enterprising Chinese and soon becomes a billion dollar company in Guangdong.