Ask Paul: April 6 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s a weighty set of questions to help us kick off the weekend a bit early.
A quick site and AMA update
We’re gearing up for a major overhaul to Thurrott.com that should solve the problems you’re experiencing and add some long-awaited new features. This update will happen in phases and is expected to begin in late May. And tied to that, I’ll be hosting an AMA with our web guru, Nick Tirrell, who will be on hand to explain what’s happening, and when, and to answer your questions. This is very exciting for me, as I’ve waited literally years for this to finally happen, and I’ve been as frustrated as many of you about the issues we’ve experienced in recent months.

The AMA will be held in a little under two weeks, on May 19 a 12 pm ET/9 am PT. It will be live, but you’ll be able to view it at any time if you can’t make it, and I will of course summarize the news in a separate post.

Thank you, and thanks for your patience.

---Paul
WFH, hybrid work, blech
bschnatt asks:

All our esteemed tech leaders seem hell-bent on pushing us into a virtual world where everybody just stays home and we all interact with silly looking avatars. I think Americans are sick of being penned in and we want our freedom to roam and interact back. How much of a pushback to this dehumanizing technology do you think there will be? I don't think there's as much fear of pandemics (past or future) as our tech leaders think there is.

I feel like this is very much a case-by-case basis. You can look at anything pandemic-related---vaccines, mask mandates, etc.---and find people who are all-in and people who are violently opposed. I’m looking forward to not wearing a mask on a plane, myself---though I’ll have to next week since that’s an international flight---but I understand the concerns of people who are high-risk who need/want to fly and they’re freaking out about a plane full of people not wearing masks. Generally speaking, the real issue, I guess, is basic respect and finding a middle ground. And that is decidedly lacking in America these days. And probably elsewhere, I feel less qualified to say.

With regards to working from home/hybrid work, I see a mix there as well. Some companies have seen the benefits, with reduced costs and less need for dedicated office space, while others fear that fewer face-to-face meetings are less efficient. And here, again, I see both sides. I’ve been working from home for decades, and for the type of work I do, that’s ideal. But I also cherish(ed) work trips, where I could interact with real people in real life, and I feel like those moments were far more productive, at a company level, than were the past few years of all-remote meetings. Which are tedious.

Looking at this logically, COVID isn’t going away, but it also seems to be less virulent/dangerous/deadly than before, and hopefully, those trends continue. But there are long-term health costs related to COVID that ...