> But when you work remotely, you're basically advertising your work as commodity work. You're basically consistently reminding the company -- and the job market -- that you are substitutable.

You don't provide an argument for why working in an office provides what you are claiming remote workers to lack, nor do you provide evidence to backup your claim that remote workers are more replaceable.

> But at some point... the way you'll make value is by enabling others to build software; reading body language, detecting issues in a team; or negotiating; or motivating; or selling; etc.

If you can't do this through verbal communication and hangouts, maybe you should work on your communication skills as a manager - sometimes listening to the words people say is more reliable than making assumptions based on body positioning. On the flip side, maybe you should focus your hiring efforts on developers with strong communication skills, and enforce an evaluation period w/ new developers to see if they can meet the mustard in terms of remote communicating. Good developers don't communicate passively; they use their words and this can be assessed by good managers.