It’s about money. Large corporations get city tax breaks to build their headquarters. The government gets a lot of money from the employees that report to those offices. The catch is that those tax breaks usually require minimum occupancy of the building. If everyone works from home then the government doesn’t get all their road tolls, gas tax, parking fees, sales tax on food, speeding tickets, parking tickets, etc. Since the government isn’t getting their kickback they stop giving the company tax breaks. So basically millions of people are being forced to do stuff they don’t want to do, just so really rich entities can be richer.
I'm split in the middle. I manage projects and also help with sales administration. I prefer in-person meetings for bigger discussions because human communications are built for face to face.
Deep discussions are just much more effective when you can read the room.