I socialize almost daily outside of work. I also socialized a lot with my coworkers at my last job. Then covid hit, and we were on happy hour zooms each week and happily.
It may be a luxury to enjoy one's coworkers. Maybe I hit the jackpot. But it seems weird to me that people don't socialize at all with anyone at their job.
In any case, I agree - work isn't ideally the only social outlet for people. The point is that for a lot of people, that was/is the only time to get interaction with others, and yes, people should be forced to interact with others a bit (not by law, but by good habits and social norms).
I'm lamenting a larger social trend that is riding the WFH wave. My broader point is that, in my opinion, the online trend of "being a loner is cool, humanity sucks, why would I ever want to talk to people" is bad, and I think the group of people who think that way is a subset of the WFH advocacy crowd.
Like I said, WFH has benefits, some of which I currently reap, and perhaps I am overreacting or projecting! I haven't formulated my ideas into a paper, I opened them to discussion.