Remote work is still 'frustrating and disorienting' for bosses, economist says—their No. 1 problem with it is how difficult it is to observe and monitor employees

Given that companies, including ones that are KNOWN to be on the bleeding edge (FAANG) and even some whos entire product revolves around WFH (ie: Zoom, Google, etc) are pulling an RTO im not really sure why you are now trying to pigeon hole and pick apart their point, while at the same time saying its not succint. They dont really need to cite anything if folks have been paying attention.

I would agree with the OP here. As a working manager and Individual Contributor at my company, I was spending an inordinate amount of time managing people and their tasks that when in office are perfectly fine performers. But at home they were not. My company also doesnt allow you to just fire people not making goals, thats not how it works, it opens them up to lawsuits of all kinds and there are plenty of weak managers out there, including where i work. Theres an entire process and almost any company with more than a couple hundred employees will be this way too.

I do have folks that are (and were) FTR before COVID and even some of them have struggled because COVID caused their home dynamics to change. Suddenly they arent the only ones home now and other factors become distractions. And not all jobs can be scheduled, many are responsive in nature.

The reality is, on the whole, most adults these days don't seem to have the self discipline to WFH full time. Some do, and sometimes on sites/platforms like this one or HackerNews you may get an unusually higher concentrations of those rockstars that can handle it also discussing it. But for most, on the whole that doesn't seem to be the case.