Cat’s already out of the bag. Collectively demanding to work in an office is, well, kind of silly. Maybe we should collectively demand something else.

Maybe we software engineers should get wise to the fact that, in theory, we’re as easily replaceable as a driver working for Uber. Sure, in practice, it may not be so easy to replace a Bay Area engineer with an engineer from a substantially less expensive country, but it’s doable, and perhaps that should give us reason to pause. We shouldn’t so easily enable bad actors because our compensation makes us believe that we’re fundamentally different from a factory worker. We’re not.

We should wholly expect to one day have to live in the world we created. We should expect to reap what we sow.