Ask HN: Why is the remote/office discussion leaning towards absolutes?

This is not meant to be conceived as a wfh rant, I’m genuinely interested in opinions about this. This is something I have observed with companies which push for back-to-office rules.

1) exec announces back-to-office, either 100% or demanding minimum presence. They do this describing how much they look forward to finally reunite again.

2) A subjectively large proportion of employees tend to dislike the change since they seem to enjoy the flexibility associated with wfh.

3) A debate begins between two seemingly absolute opposite positions: those who justify 100% remote and those demanding 100% presence.

4) Some kind of compromise is either made or introduced from the start where execs don‘t demand 100% office presence, but at least some.

Now what I wonder is why all of these debates tend to lean towards the absolutes, totally neglecting what, subjectively, most „pro remote“ employees would really desire: having the freedom to plan their on-site presence independently based on what they and their teams actually need. Execs usually seem to imply meeting in person would not be possible without their minimum presence push, sometimes relying solely on this point to justify it, while teams I spoke to usually do want to schedule regular presence meetings, recurring workshops, both internally as well as together with other teams. None of the employees of various companies I spoke to actually demand 100% remote, instead they seem to desire more trust by their execs to manage their presence as they see fit.