When Hot Trends Turn Cold

Two formerly blazing hot trends seem now to be on the verge of dying: the Metaverse and remote work. The Insider has a Metaverse obituary, making the case that the whole thing was all hype and no substance from the beginning. What now for the trillion-dollar company that changed its name to Meta?

Along with other pandemic-era trends that proved not to stick, remote work as a norm seems to be rapidly reversing itself. From banking to tech, the past year has seen a steady return-to-office shift and now we have data on why. EY-Parthenon reports that worker productivity in the USA is at its lowest level since 1948, and it strongly suggests that remote work is to blame. Drops in productivity are a especially concerning given that much of the modern economic model rests on assumed continuous gains in productivity and output of both goods and services.