Although that might indeed have been part of the reason in some cases, the real reason is always money.

They have all those big office buildings around, which had a cost and are worth some real money today. If they allow those to be left empty, it is just a question of time before they start losing value and real estate investment would come crashing, a lot of money would disappear from the market that way. The inconvenience of an employee is worth much less than whatever stupid capital gains they might be able to get on their business real estate investments.

Yeah it was a show of strength. You want to be home and we have power so no.

It was also about the leasing businesses ensuring clients because a remoting company would look at a smaller footprint, if any.

So remote work has some people taking advantage in ways of actually doing less work and being lazy like tilting mouse pads to make it seem like you're there, the looped feeds to make you appear there, some people being obviously drunk.

But remote work has more benefits for those who are productive like: you can be a parent, you can eat out of your fridge, you can shit on your own toilet, you can wear no pants during meetings, you can clean your house and not have that added to your mental load coming back home after a days work.

You can live while working and I think that pisses a lot of people off for some odd reason.

Comfortable, happy and secure in their environment workers are the best workers.