Leasing office space in a place like NY traditionally required at least a one year lease, often longer. WeWork has at least popularized the notion of extremely flexible month-to-month contracts for fully managed facilities in historically expensive markets, which is very attractive to virtually all companies (now is that a sustainable business remains to be seen, but at least the demand is there). Not just small companies and startups, but companies of all sizes like the flexible opex that can be scaled on short notice. WeWork's S1 shows that a big chunk of the customer base and growing is in fact large companies. E.g. Microsoft in New York has their entire sales organization scattered across WeWork properties. That kind of thing is where WeWork appears to be doubling down on according to their S1, not really the freelancer hot-desk market.
Companies also generally don't like to deal with anything that is not core to their business. Already previously most functions were outsourced (cleaning, maintenance, stocking the fridge etc.) but increasingly companies don't even want to deal with the hassle of sourcing a supplier. Or getting Internet. Or insurance. WeWork makes all of that a non-issue. So does Regus Spaces product, but it has to be at least acknowledged that it's a direct reaction to WeWork.
I think the future will look something like this, and why it can be likened to AWS for physical space (WeWork doesn't go this far yet, today requiring e.g. physically visiting the space before leasing which is honestly a pain-in-the-ass speaking as someone looking to place multiple people all over the US, just let me input my credit card already):
- Startup company in the Bay Area logs in online and clicks to reserve a 1x Private Office in NYC, for the two new hires starting there next week. No tour, no calls, no interaction with anyone at WeWork. WeWork is already a "known quantity" (kind of like McDonald's), no need for any of that process.
- Microsoft manager in Redmond does absolutely nothing workplace related as his new hire just shows up at WeWork Houston, as the company already has a direct expensing agreement. His cost center is just billed X for the month automatically.