>I fundamentally do not think remote teams can ever be as productive as in-person teams.
Trade an anecdote for an anecdote.
We have found our dev team to be exactly as productive if not more since moving to work from home. A single instance of productive remote work invalidates this statement that it is literally impossible for remote work to be productive.
The OP's claim is slightly vague, but would most charitably be read as saying that if you compare all teams (as in the total of all teams around the world), they will perform better in-person than remote, and that this is unlikely to change.
You seem to be interpreting the OP as having said that each and every team is always better in-person. Your read is plausible, but HN guidelines say we should interpret charitably.
Anyway, taking conclusions over what happens to all teams, or the average, or any distribution is a pretty useless task¹. Your work environment won't influence all teams, just yours, so it shouldn't be fit to all.
1 - Unless you are talking about how to tell those teams apart and discover what environment each one fits better. That would be valuable.
How many companies have a set up where people hotdesk nowhere near their team (sometimes in different buildings) and encourage all meetings online because there is not enough meeting space? I don’t know, but I know it’s not zero.
Trade an anecdote for an anecdote.
We have found our dev team to be exactly as productive if not more since moving to work from home. A single instance of productive remote work invalidates this statement that it is literally impossible for remote work to be productive.