The vast majority of Americans live in suburbs and the door-to-door from their suburban rancher to the office by car is 15-20 minutes.
If, in the United States, your commute is over one hour you are an extreme outlier in the "wtf are you thinking?" direction.
1. Wanted to buy a house (everywhere closer is either a ghetto or 100k+ more and usually both).
2. Not going to spend 6 additional months job hunting to micro-optimize commute.
In a post-pandemic world the "what they were thinking" may well have been that had 2 years when they weren't permitted to work in an office, and made decisions on the basis that this would continue.
My dad moved to an entirely different city 8 hours away from where he was originally living (although in his case he checked that he would allowed to continue working remotely before moving (which he has been able to), and was close to retiring anyway).