But it isn't. There's a reason that every company wants that top 0.001%. Employees who give a damn and can be trusted to get things done effectively without supervision or managerial pressure are rare. Even at the best organizations, they're often a minority. At weaker organizations, and (typically) at older and larger ones, they're somewhere between "very rare" and "totally nonexistent".

If you're the latest highly-funded startup, maybe you can pay enough and create a good enough work environment to attract that person. But what if you're a random 30-year-old contracting firm in Overland Park, Kansas, paying $85k a year for software engineers? Do you think you'll attract that vanishingly rare talent? Can you rely on the idea that all of your engineers are so motivated and so skilled?

If you want to argue for that level of managerial hands-off-ness, you can do that. It's a legitimate managerial philosophy, and it might even be the right one! But I think it's hard to deny that many people don't think that's the right managerial philosophy, and that's all that they need to believe to favor RTO without any particular malice.

My point isn't to argue for RTO. Again, I run a remote company, and if you ask me, I'll tell you your company should probably be remote, too (depending on exactly what you do). My point is to argue that people who are arguing for it need not be doing so out of any particular malice.