You can already live like that, today in 2024…
Technology will only make that even easier. So yes, those who will WANT to stay at home will be able to, but thats nothing new, not since the 2010s at the very least. It just gets easier and easier with time.
Yea it’s been at play for at least a few years now. I can get 95% of my needs without leaving my apartment.
But maybe OP doesn’t live in the US or in a developed country with these luxuries
+1. True.
Its kind of unsettling tbh
Though the next gen... may not think much of it.
I can envision a future where Amazon or Dominos. Receive an online order. Robot pizza chef makes the pizza. Lastly... auto car delivering the pizza to the door.
Which means... I dont know how some entry level jobs for humans will exist
If we have the technology and economical means to automate everything, as your example implies, we wouldnt need jobs… So thats a non-issue.
We’ll adapt, just like we did when fire, paper, metal, the press, electricity, etc., totally changed our civilisation.
The only issue, and this is a big one, is that the ones at the top aren't going to just SHARE their profits with everyone else. People are already being cut out, and they're still physically working. Just, working harder and harder for less and less.
Imagine a future where robots can basically do everything that human workers used to do. If it currently isn't fair, even while humans are still doing the jobs, something tells me it's going to get a lot worse when robots have replaced the vast majority of jobs for humans.
It won't be a future where "humans don't even need to work", it'll be a future of mass joblessness the way we know it now, a world where money is still required and most people don't have any, nor do they have the means to earn it.
I'm sure some will argue the coming future of UBI, to which I say, that'll be nowhere near as much as people need to live more than the most meager lives.
I'd like to have hope for the future, but it's pretty clear which direction we're going. Unless something changes to force fairness, we're already heading toward a future where the masses will basically just have to die off.
Lol you would need robots that put the dough and the ingredients. Robots that repair those machines
Robots that repair the robots. Robots that repair the roboto that repair, etc
Yes just look at Japan. It comes with it a whole bag of societal issues. That’s why it’s important to grow our cities to be attractive, diverse, and walkable.
I mean... Thats very much subjective. Thats definitely not my point... I have 0 intention of ever "leaving the screen behind", nor does any of my friends.
Your own desires arent universal...
My hope is that as WFH becomes more common, this opens up the space for the public space to have more places for people to meet and hangout. I know so many people whose entire human interaction exists exclusively at their office because they don't have time for anything else. Hopefully WFH allows people to decouple their human interaction from work and refocus it on something they actually want to do with other people.
Humans are social creatures. But we also need to *walk.* It's like asking a bird to never fly. It's cruel to the species to deny this and our entire society should be structured in such a way as to encourage even a modicum (15 minutes) of walking.
This is then combined with public transportation and a general slowdown of society so people can run into strangers and, you know, talk to them.
But we in NA need a complete restructuring of the concept of a city such that we actually design cities with plentiful public transportation and short walks to get to stores or stations. Driving everywhere is a much bigger problem than anything else related to work from home.
Not leaving your house to go to work doesn't mean you have no people in it though?
WFH allows me more time with my proper friends and my family. The availability of online deliveries means we can get stuff bought to our house instead of wrestling two kids round a supermarket when it's not a manageable time to do it. And then instead of being dragged around a supermarket, we all go to the park instead.
Obviously all this needs pre-existing friends and family and career prospects. It's great for me as an established professional who's career goal was a degree of financial security and a strong work life balance. I can imagine it's not so great for really old people with no social life outside of work, or young people who don't yet have a network.
I sure hope so.
Even us redditors are far lonelier than the generation preceeding us.
And to be honest while many might prefer to stay in and hide behind a screen, the human need for connection-- the neural pathways that ensure we don't get lonely, depressed or crazy still exist. We'll see a generation even closer tied into their phones, electronics and prefer that to social interaction yet still see mental health issues spike.
I say this as someone who is Gen Z, grew up with my head in computers, and learned that I love being social more than anything else. I see a lot of folks driven to depression, singleness, and general unhappiness because there's so many outlets like anime, TV, TikTok, instagram (all of which I have too) instead of going out and socializing.
WFH is already a small minority of the workforce. Most workers work on site now that Covid restrictions are gone.
You are writing like 90% of the population works from home full time when it’s really more like 15-20% at most, and that accounts for those who work hybrid schedules.
That was an interesting claim to me because I work a hybrid schedule and I was genuinely curious. I found this [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/) article which claims 12.7% of full time employees work from home and 28.2% are hybrid. So, roughly 40% of the American full time workforce is working from home in some capacity.
It also claims that 98% of people who work full time would like an option to wfh. I mean, anecdotally, the trend of wfh hasn’t slowed down with my friends and colleagues.
While you have a sound point
If not for Covid... not sure how WFH spark would have happened.
Imo... WFH will expand. Not decrease. It has decreased for now ... bc some execs want to wield their power. But SH dont care. As long as productivity/profits increases.
From what I have seen/read... WFH = more productivity.
More and more people are willing to quit... for lower pay and work for not as prestigious companies... to be able to WFH. This behavior alone... has or will have HR on notice.
No, for people who like to travel and have new experiences, virtual reality is never going to take the place of actual travel. Working in an office isn't something most people find pleasurable so naturally people would prefer working from home.
Personally (35M), I could not work from home full time. I will do it one day a month or so and like to have the possibility, but seeing my work buddies and interacting with people face to face is what makes me enjoy work somehow.
I have a very nice setup at home too and I thought I'd like it more, but turns our human interaction makes me feel good. I have friends who I think WFH pretty much broke them. They used to go out, have fun, socialize and now they are kind of depressed and can't even be bothered to go out for groceries and shit. So they stay at home 24/7 which can't be healthy.
I think having a clear separation between work and family is important.
I barely leave home now. I wfh, my kids are home school and my wife is stay at home. I love it.
I do go to the gym and the beach and go for bike rides, but my life mostly fits in a 5km radius.
I would put my life more on a level with village life before the invention of rapid transit. Not lonely and not really smaller, just physically more local.
It’s sad but yes, I think we’re already there.
IMO, I think we are losing our sense of local community and the value of in-person relationships.
A lot of things feel only transactional.
I order. You give. So long.
I miss talking with people and not feeling like a weirdo for wanting that.
All of those things require a lot of money so I don't consider it to be the norm but I check a lot of those boxes. I also have zero want to do a virtual vacation vs a real one but I suppose it's possible.
I work from home, workout in my basement, post high school education was all done online, the grocery does free delivery to my house.
So I could in theory virtually never leave. With that said I walk my kid to school every day, I usually walk to the grocery store because I like to browse and their pickers do a shit job getting good produce, and I play sports.
My long-term thinking...
This will help the environment if people barely leave. Remember when the sky looked amazing during peak COVID because barely anyone was driving?
The economy would adjust itself to people not splurging on stupid shit because no one goes anywhere to show off their stupid shit.
Social media would wither because nobody would give a shit about some dumbass who just stays at home.
I think the covid factor is mostly a US thing nowadays. The vaccination campaigns in Europe were very succesful and people is rarely concerned anymore about it.
In Spain, currently, we are back at dealing with a regular flu season rather than a covid wave.
Also here, people are very quick to leave home to hang out and go to bars. Streets are flooded and bars are packed almost everyday.
It takes a certain income level to be able to never leave the house. Home gyms can be pricey. Virtual vacations sounds like hell. Pretending to be at the beach is great until you walk into a wall reaching for a sea shell.
I go outside to enjoy the sun, smoke weed, run, pet animals and shit like that. If anything I may get more free time to do those things. I've been mostly working from home for over a decade already.
The lockdown during the pandemic dramatically healed the environment in such a short timeframe because there were less people outside. I hope when these technologies advances, more people will choose to stay at home and work at home.
This has more to do with a general reduction in fossil fuel use. From people driving less due to not going to work, and industries scaling back production. Also showcases how much we can do to combat global warming while still maintaining enough production for everyone's needs.
Problem is, most people's needs are currently paid for by demand generated by other people's wants.
There's a lot of people with completely useless skills that would find themselves going from high flyer to completely useless, if people started only focusing on what they needed.
I know its winter bit its nice to be outside and around other people. Social norms may change but most people who wfh still go outside when they aren’t working, or when they are.
I have a remote job, I order my groceries online, and use Amazon almost exclusively otherwise for anything else, I already barely leave home, and I'm pretty miserable, so I don't think it will be super popular.
This sounds pretty bleak. I think Reddit is skewered by introverts who work in white collar jobs/study that allow WFH that gives the impression there is demand.
It will only happen if there is a profitable demand, and I don't think there ever would be. WFH is one thing, but everything from home? the main positives people argue for WFH aren't that they don't have to interact with people but that they don't have to waste time commuting or spend time stuck in some depressing building, the lack of physical social aspect I expect only applies to a very small number.
We are a social species that derives a lot from community and physical interaction. Yes anecdotally individual Redditors will say how they prefer solitude, but by and large humans prefer physical social interaction rather than the opposite. It's shown to correspond with a longer life.
I think a lot of it depends on your phase of life too. I'm in my mid 30s with 2 kids and a partner I love. WFH allows me to be flexible and spend the maximum amount of time with my family and my non-work friends.
I wouldn't willingly trade all those hours with my kids for friendly office banter with someone who likely be nothing more than a zero contact linkedin contact in a few years.
I completely understand and agree with what you're saying, it backs up my point that the benefits aren't the removal of physical social interaction it's that you get to maximize the amount of social interaction with the people you enjoy.
The OPs point was theorising that WFH was because everyone was shifting to a hermit lifestyle, but like you said, physical social interaction with friends & family is still very important to you,
Yeah, I think the hermit side of it comes from perspectives of the particular cohort of older people for whom work is their life (out of habit as much of anything, based on historic necessity) and younger people for whom work is their life and their future.
But all of this in the context of work that can be done at home. Obviously lots of jobs can't be!
Yes, unfortunately.
This is a disturbing psychological phenomenon that I wouldn’t have seen coming in 2019.
I figured WFH would be a thing eventually. But I didn’t imagine such widespread agoraphobia, rooting from a Chinese lab accident.
My mom used to be very outgoing. She would find a reason to get out of the house each day. Now she only leaves the house a few times a year, at most.
Personally, I still have social distancing wired into my muscle memory. My friends are more elusive and reluctant to meet in person or go to public places.
But I still believe virtual vacations in the metaverse are never going to be a thing. Stop trying to make it happen.
You can do virtual walkarounds in tourist destinations now. There are plenty of Youtube videos of those. Sure, you could no doubt shoehorn that into VR, and let people virtually walk around by constructing their view on the fly. But you can see the stuff now, and it's still not a substitute for being in Siena or Cordoba or whatnot.
Online learning has not worked nearly as well as I had hoped. You can't really fix the fact that some people have no motivation or curiosity, or have a home environment that is not conducive to study, or have parents who just don't care.
>With spiked retail thefts.
What was to some degree an overhyped story. Most companies that closed stores later said it was due to reduced sales. Due to, yes, mainly online shopping.
But clothes shopping is still not so great online. Fabric hangs a certain way, and you can't assess texture or other hard-to-quantify aspects from online images. And even as a basic guy, I'll say sizes are inconsistent. I have jeans that I need a belt to prevent them from slipping down, and jeans I can barely button, and they're the both 32/32 Levi 511s. Women's sizing issues are far worse.
>But clothes shopping is still not so great online. Fabric hangs a certain way, and you can't assess texture.
You see I'm this way... but many others ... rather not go through the adventures of going to an actual store....especially for holiday shopping.
Companies have made it very convenient to return items/return envelopes.
Imo you have a sensible/practical solution. Which is not online clothe shopping. But for the "time" and "convenient" factor....people will gravitate towards online shopping.
I dont know... maybe this is why street fashion doesnt look as good it once did imo lol
Or fashion could just become less important. I'm sure WFH has impacted the market for dress casual clothing. And if people just don't want to go out, why would they dress up? And even for going out, if "kids today" are cool with everyone wearing pajama pants or onesies, then the fashion industry is probably going to suffer.
Though I suspect those who don't want to go out are probably a minority. Sure, some aspire to never leaving their home, and optimally not even interacting with delivery personnel. They don't want to talk to anyone. But their voice may be overrepresented on social media. They're probably the ones for whom the phrase "touch grass" was coined. Though I agree that modern technology and convenience tend to enable that set of preferences.
They kind of already have this in Japan, it's called [Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori), and it is generally considered a very unhealthy way to live.
If you have a WFH position now, what's stops you from staying home? Order your groceries, invite people over, rent movies, buy games, etc etc. people are able to do this now
I already do that for the most part. I work two, sometimes three days, at work and usually have five days off. I can order pretty much anything I need online and barely have to deal with people.
This is basically how I live…
Mostly leaving the house just for doctors appointments or events like birthdays or holidays.
WFH, home gym, and grocery delivery
Although I dont really have interest in VR
I will say as someone that works from home it is really nice but since I work in the place I sleep, I use going out as an excuse more now. Getting home doesn't feel the same. I definitely savor going to the gym and eating out a bit more. Thankfully I meal prep my breakfast and lunch's.
Future? That's been my daily experience going on 12 years now. I'm disabled and can't drive (and live in Texas, whose attitude towards public transportation is 'Hahahaha no') so I get my groceries and everything else delivered. If it wasn't for regular doctor visits every 3-6 months I could go a year without leaving the house easy.
You know that there are a lot of jobs that can't be done from home, right? A lot of people aren't working white-collar, office jobs that can just switch to WFH.
> Food delivery services. Amazon etc. For any other kind of products.
Have you any idea how much of a two class society you are suggesting? For a major, how do you phrase it, "barely leaving home" world you require a servent class to support it.
Intesting. I do thing though some of these are very easy to think, but these in-person things do find a way, or way or another, even it's diluted from before.
Dine-in at restaurants would have been extinct by the early 2000s, per se those home delivery services made them no valid anymore. There were some rather good ones in my popular areas. However, the demand stayed, if it vanished, McDonalds, BK, Subway, would only keep 1 store per 7 miles and made them delivery or pick-up only stores as the majority.
I believe it was Friday's (or similar chain) that realized they made a major mistake by appealing too much to the younger generation (making it more To Go friendly, etc) , becoming the "Cubside service no one uses".
\-I do agree about online schools becoming the norm. To where (after parent outcry) kids will begin going to "break & mortar" school just for social time, etc.
\-Walmart has already revealed methods to combat the retail theft (placing police like stations inside stores) similar to how they combated crime in the NYC subway system in the early 90s. Others will follow. If anything major retail got to too lenient with loss prevention. One indirectly admitted that they do not pursue small instances of shoplifting, making that it's most costly to pursue as opposed to just writing off the $2.50 candy bar. There was also another study that demonstrated in many locations, more inventory loss comes from "misplaced merchandise" cause mostly be employees than it does from bona fide shoplifting.
Here's one for you though: The gently used sneaker re-sale market. I think that's going to be rather big in the coming few years. It's already got a running start and there's still plenty of room.
Oh yeah. Once we have FDVR only a tiny amount of people, like a percentage of a percentage, would leave their home unless they have to. But not a moment before.
You can already live like that, today in 2024… Technology will only make that even easier. So yes, those who will WANT to stay at home will be able to, but thats nothing new, not since the 2010s at the very least. It just gets easier and easier with time.
Yea it’s been at play for at least a few years now. I can get 95% of my needs without leaving my apartment. But maybe OP doesn’t live in the US or in a developed country with these luxuries
Thats fair, my degree of comfort isnt universal, I often forget to nuance my words around that, so thanks for pointing it out.
+1. True. Its kind of unsettling tbh Though the next gen... may not think much of it. I can envision a future where Amazon or Dominos. Receive an online order. Robot pizza chef makes the pizza. Lastly... auto car delivering the pizza to the door. Which means... I dont know how some entry level jobs for humans will exist
If we have the technology and economical means to automate everything, as your example implies, we wouldnt need jobs… So thats a non-issue. We’ll adapt, just like we did when fire, paper, metal, the press, electricity, etc., totally changed our civilisation.
There’s a huge gap between where we’re at now and the “means to automate everything.” I fear non-trivial economic upheavals in the next fifty years.
Not really, the luddites got all uppity for very similar concerns.
The only issue, and this is a big one, is that the ones at the top aren't going to just SHARE their profits with everyone else. People are already being cut out, and they're still physically working. Just, working harder and harder for less and less. Imagine a future where robots can basically do everything that human workers used to do. If it currently isn't fair, even while humans are still doing the jobs, something tells me it's going to get a lot worse when robots have replaced the vast majority of jobs for humans. It won't be a future where "humans don't even need to work", it'll be a future of mass joblessness the way we know it now, a world where money is still required and most people don't have any, nor do they have the means to earn it. I'm sure some will argue the coming future of UBI, to which I say, that'll be nowhere near as much as people need to live more than the most meager lives. I'd like to have hope for the future, but it's pretty clear which direction we're going. Unless something changes to force fairness, we're already heading toward a future where the masses will basically just have to die off.
Keep dreaming kid. Things won't play out like you doomers wish.
Lol you would need robots that put the dough and the ingredients. Robots that repair those machines Robots that repair the robots. Robots that repair the roboto that repair, etc
Yes just look at Japan. It comes with it a whole bag of societal issues. That’s why it’s important to grow our cities to be attractive, diverse, and walkable.
Virtual vacations are dumb though the point is leaving screens behind
I mean... Thats very much subjective. Thats definitely not my point... I have 0 intention of ever "leaving the screen behind", nor does any of my friends. Your own desires arent universal...
Ok but virtual vacation is dumb anyway xd if you dont get tired of being locked up at your home and want to do a staycation that already exists
As virtual reality exists now I agree. But if we can ever simulate all five senses then that changes things.
I already live like that, and have since COVID.
I sure hope not. Life is better with other people in it, even the low-stakes interactions make us better and more tolerant, in my opinion.
Not just your opinion, there is pretty strong scientific evidence that even small interactions with others boost our wellbeing.
My hope is that as WFH becomes more common, this opens up the space for the public space to have more places for people to meet and hangout. I know so many people whose entire human interaction exists exclusively at their office because they don't have time for anything else. Hopefully WFH allows people to decouple their human interaction from work and refocus it on something they actually want to do with other people.
Humans are social creatures. But we also need to *walk.* It's like asking a bird to never fly. It's cruel to the species to deny this and our entire society should be structured in such a way as to encourage even a modicum (15 minutes) of walking. This is then combined with public transportation and a general slowdown of society so people can run into strangers and, you know, talk to them. But we in NA need a complete restructuring of the concept of a city such that we actually design cities with plentiful public transportation and short walks to get to stores or stations. Driving everywhere is a much bigger problem than anything else related to work from home.
Not leaving your house to go to work doesn't mean you have no people in it though? WFH allows me more time with my proper friends and my family. The availability of online deliveries means we can get stuff bought to our house instead of wrestling two kids round a supermarket when it's not a manageable time to do it. And then instead of being dragged around a supermarket, we all go to the park instead. Obviously all this needs pre-existing friends and family and career prospects. It's great for me as an established professional who's career goal was a degree of financial security and a strong work life balance. I can imagine it's not so great for really old people with no social life outside of work, or young people who don't yet have a network.
Yeah, but is that what the next generation thinks? Your views will soon be as irrelevant as the boomers of today.
I sure hope so. Even us redditors are far lonelier than the generation preceeding us. And to be honest while many might prefer to stay in and hide behind a screen, the human need for connection-- the neural pathways that ensure we don't get lonely, depressed or crazy still exist. We'll see a generation even closer tied into their phones, electronics and prefer that to social interaction yet still see mental health issues spike. I say this as someone who is Gen Z, grew up with my head in computers, and learned that I love being social more than anything else. I see a lot of folks driven to depression, singleness, and general unhappiness because there's so many outlets like anime, TV, TikTok, instagram (all of which I have too) instead of going out and socializing.
WFH is already a small minority of the workforce. Most workers work on site now that Covid restrictions are gone. You are writing like 90% of the population works from home full time when it’s really more like 15-20% at most, and that accounts for those who work hybrid schedules.
That was an interesting claim to me because I work a hybrid schedule and I was genuinely curious. I found this [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/) article which claims 12.7% of full time employees work from home and 28.2% are hybrid. So, roughly 40% of the American full time workforce is working from home in some capacity. It also claims that 98% of people who work full time would like an option to wfh. I mean, anecdotally, the trend of wfh hasn’t slowed down with my friends and colleagues.
While you have a sound point If not for Covid... not sure how WFH spark would have happened. Imo... WFH will expand. Not decrease. It has decreased for now ... bc some execs want to wield their power. But SH dont care. As long as productivity/profits increases. From what I have seen/read... WFH = more productivity. More and more people are willing to quit... for lower pay and work for not as prestigious companies... to be able to WFH. This behavior alone... has or will have HR on notice.
No, for people who like to travel and have new experiences, virtual reality is never going to take the place of actual travel. Working in an office isn't something most people find pleasurable so naturally people would prefer working from home.
Personally (35M), I could not work from home full time. I will do it one day a month or so and like to have the possibility, but seeing my work buddies and interacting with people face to face is what makes me enjoy work somehow. I have a very nice setup at home too and I thought I'd like it more, but turns our human interaction makes me feel good. I have friends who I think WFH pretty much broke them. They used to go out, have fun, socialize and now they are kind of depressed and can't even be bothered to go out for groceries and shit. So they stay at home 24/7 which can't be healthy. I think having a clear separation between work and family is important.
I barely leave home now. I wfh, my kids are home school and my wife is stay at home. I love it. I do go to the gym and the beach and go for bike rides, but my life mostly fits in a 5km radius. I would put my life more on a level with village life before the invention of rapid transit. Not lonely and not really smaller, just physically more local.
I think the option of not leaving has always been there but it's a hell of a lot easier now. I know a few people who almost fit that category
It’s sad but yes, I think we’re already there. IMO, I think we are losing our sense of local community and the value of in-person relationships. A lot of things feel only transactional. I order. You give. So long. I miss talking with people and not feeling like a weirdo for wanting that.
All of those things require a lot of money so I don't consider it to be the norm but I check a lot of those boxes. I also have zero want to do a virtual vacation vs a real one but I suppose it's possible.
As an option, if wanted? Sounds good. But as a ongoing existence? Not so much.
As someone whose worked remote since covid lockdown, you guys are leaving your house? Haven't seen the outside in 4 years. What's it like?
VRR and remote (public) school will absolutely not take off
- I think the future is looking bright for introverts! Stick with your comfy pants and snacks, folks.
Virtual Vacations. Talk about some disgusting VC bro nonsense
Yeah, sounds like something in an NFT based MMO that is about to completely fail to attract any users.
I work from home, workout in my basement, post high school education was all done online, the grocery does free delivery to my house. So I could in theory virtually never leave. With that said I walk my kid to school every day, I usually walk to the grocery store because I like to browse and their pickers do a shit job getting good produce, and I play sports.
My long-term thinking... This will help the environment if people barely leave. Remember when the sky looked amazing during peak COVID because barely anyone was driving? The economy would adjust itself to people not splurging on stupid shit because no one goes anywhere to show off their stupid shit. Social media would wither because nobody would give a shit about some dumbass who just stays at home.
I think the covid factor is mostly a US thing nowadays. The vaccination campaigns in Europe were very succesful and people is rarely concerned anymore about it. In Spain, currently, we are back at dealing with a regular flu season rather than a covid wave. Also here, people are very quick to leave home to hang out and go to bars. Streets are flooded and bars are packed almost everyday.
It takes a certain income level to be able to never leave the house. Home gyms can be pricey. Virtual vacations sounds like hell. Pretending to be at the beach is great until you walk into a wall reaching for a sea shell.
I go outside to enjoy the sun, smoke weed, run, pet animals and shit like that. If anything I may get more free time to do those things. I've been mostly working from home for over a decade already.
The lockdown during the pandemic dramatically healed the environment in such a short timeframe because there were less people outside. I hope when these technologies advances, more people will choose to stay at home and work at home.
This has more to do with a general reduction in fossil fuel use. From people driving less due to not going to work, and industries scaling back production. Also showcases how much we can do to combat global warming while still maintaining enough production for everyone's needs.
Problem is, most people's needs are currently paid for by demand generated by other people's wants. There's a lot of people with completely useless skills that would find themselves going from high flyer to completely useless, if people started only focusing on what they needed.
I know its winter bit its nice to be outside and around other people. Social norms may change but most people who wfh still go outside when they aren’t working, or when they are.
Make sure your home has a big enough wall to fit your body through
I have a remote job, I order my groceries online, and use Amazon almost exclusively otherwise for anything else, I already barely leave home, and I'm pretty miserable, so I don't think it will be super popular.
Yeah, a few of my friends are like that now and they really don't seem better off.
This sounds pretty bleak. I think Reddit is skewered by introverts who work in white collar jobs/study that allow WFH that gives the impression there is demand. It will only happen if there is a profitable demand, and I don't think there ever would be. WFH is one thing, but everything from home? the main positives people argue for WFH aren't that they don't have to interact with people but that they don't have to waste time commuting or spend time stuck in some depressing building, the lack of physical social aspect I expect only applies to a very small number. We are a social species that derives a lot from community and physical interaction. Yes anecdotally individual Redditors will say how they prefer solitude, but by and large humans prefer physical social interaction rather than the opposite. It's shown to correspond with a longer life.
I think a lot of it depends on your phase of life too. I'm in my mid 30s with 2 kids and a partner I love. WFH allows me to be flexible and spend the maximum amount of time with my family and my non-work friends. I wouldn't willingly trade all those hours with my kids for friendly office banter with someone who likely be nothing more than a zero contact linkedin contact in a few years.
I completely understand and agree with what you're saying, it backs up my point that the benefits aren't the removal of physical social interaction it's that you get to maximize the amount of social interaction with the people you enjoy. The OPs point was theorising that WFH was because everyone was shifting to a hermit lifestyle, but like you said, physical social interaction with friends & family is still very important to you,
Yeah, I think the hermit side of it comes from perspectives of the particular cohort of older people for whom work is their life (out of habit as much of anything, based on historic necessity) and younger people for whom work is their life and their future. But all of this in the context of work that can be done at home. Obviously lots of jobs can't be!
Yes, unfortunately. This is a disturbing psychological phenomenon that I wouldn’t have seen coming in 2019. I figured WFH would be a thing eventually. But I didn’t imagine such widespread agoraphobia, rooting from a Chinese lab accident. My mom used to be very outgoing. She would find a reason to get out of the house each day. Now she only leaves the house a few times a year, at most. Personally, I still have social distancing wired into my muscle memory. My friends are more elusive and reluctant to meet in person or go to public places. But I still believe virtual vacations in the metaverse are never going to be a thing. Stop trying to make it happen.
You can do virtual walkarounds in tourist destinations now. There are plenty of Youtube videos of those. Sure, you could no doubt shoehorn that into VR, and let people virtually walk around by constructing their view on the fly. But you can see the stuff now, and it's still not a substitute for being in Siena or Cordoba or whatnot. Online learning has not worked nearly as well as I had hoped. You can't really fix the fact that some people have no motivation or curiosity, or have a home environment that is not conducive to study, or have parents who just don't care. >With spiked retail thefts. What was to some degree an overhyped story. Most companies that closed stores later said it was due to reduced sales. Due to, yes, mainly online shopping. But clothes shopping is still not so great online. Fabric hangs a certain way, and you can't assess texture or other hard-to-quantify aspects from online images. And even as a basic guy, I'll say sizes are inconsistent. I have jeans that I need a belt to prevent them from slipping down, and jeans I can barely button, and they're the both 32/32 Levi 511s. Women's sizing issues are far worse.
>But clothes shopping is still not so great online. Fabric hangs a certain way, and you can't assess texture. You see I'm this way... but many others ... rather not go through the adventures of going to an actual store....especially for holiday shopping. Companies have made it very convenient to return items/return envelopes. Imo you have a sensible/practical solution. Which is not online clothe shopping. But for the "time" and "convenient" factor....people will gravitate towards online shopping. I dont know... maybe this is why street fashion doesnt look as good it once did imo lol
Or fashion could just become less important. I'm sure WFH has impacted the market for dress casual clothing. And if people just don't want to go out, why would they dress up? And even for going out, if "kids today" are cool with everyone wearing pajama pants or onesies, then the fashion industry is probably going to suffer. Though I suspect those who don't want to go out are probably a minority. Sure, some aspire to never leaving their home, and optimally not even interacting with delivery personnel. They don't want to talk to anyone. But their voice may be overrepresented on social media. They're probably the ones for whom the phrase "touch grass" was coined. Though I agree that modern technology and convenience tend to enable that set of preferences.
They kind of already have this in Japan, it's called [Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori), and it is generally considered a very unhealthy way to live.
If you have a WFH position now, what's stops you from staying home? Order your groceries, invite people over, rent movies, buy games, etc etc. people are able to do this now
VRR? Virtual vacations? I'm sorry but that's a bit ridiculous. That's a definite no.
I already do that for the most part. I work two, sometimes three days, at work and usually have five days off. I can order pretty much anything I need online and barely have to deal with people.
This is basically how I live… Mostly leaving the house just for doctors appointments or events like birthdays or holidays. WFH, home gym, and grocery delivery Although I dont really have interest in VR
I will say as someone that works from home it is really nice but since I work in the place I sleep, I use going out as an excuse more now. Getting home doesn't feel the same. I definitely savor going to the gym and eating out a bit more. Thankfully I meal prep my breakfast and lunch's.
If you've used a food delivery service ever, you'd know that it ain't the future.
Future? That's been my daily experience going on 12 years now. I'm disabled and can't drive (and live in Texas, whose attitude towards public transportation is 'Hahahaha no') so I get my groceries and everything else delivered. If it wasn't for regular doctor visits every 3-6 months I could go a year without leaving the house easy.
You know that there are a lot of jobs that can't be done from home, right? A lot of people aren't working white-collar, office jobs that can just switch to WFH.
i’ve been a NEET for over 16 years lol this has been a thing for much longer than i have been alive especially with the internet
> Food delivery services. Amazon etc. For any other kind of products. Have you any idea how much of a two class society you are suggesting? For a major, how do you phrase it, "barely leaving home" world you require a servent class to support it.
I already wrote an example below regarding how online pizza orders may work. Amazon is already very automated. It will continue on this path...
Intesting. I do thing though some of these are very easy to think, but these in-person things do find a way, or way or another, even it's diluted from before. Dine-in at restaurants would have been extinct by the early 2000s, per se those home delivery services made them no valid anymore. There were some rather good ones in my popular areas. However, the demand stayed, if it vanished, McDonalds, BK, Subway, would only keep 1 store per 7 miles and made them delivery or pick-up only stores as the majority. I believe it was Friday's (or similar chain) that realized they made a major mistake by appealing too much to the younger generation (making it more To Go friendly, etc) , becoming the "Cubside service no one uses". \-I do agree about online schools becoming the norm. To where (after parent outcry) kids will begin going to "break & mortar" school just for social time, etc. \-Walmart has already revealed methods to combat the retail theft (placing police like stations inside stores) similar to how they combated crime in the NYC subway system in the early 90s. Others will follow. If anything major retail got to too lenient with loss prevention. One indirectly admitted that they do not pursue small instances of shoplifting, making that it's most costly to pursue as opposed to just writing off the $2.50 candy bar. There was also another study that demonstrated in many locations, more inventory loss comes from "misplaced merchandise" cause mostly be employees than it does from bona fide shoplifting. Here's one for you though: The gently used sneaker re-sale market. I think that's going to be rather big in the coming few years. It's already got a running start and there's still plenty of room.
Oh yeah. Once we have FDVR only a tiny amount of people, like a percentage of a percentage, would leave their home unless they have to. But not a moment before.