> Meanwhile the most flexible companies can pick up talent easily, picking and choosing and building very tough rosters for quite reasonable prices.

While it sounds good on paper, hiring decent remote folks for a company is actually much harder, especially if you're a startup. It's way easier taking a bet on someone local where you don't have to second guess how productive they are. For similar interview performance, most companies would prefer folks who can come to office instead of full remote. Obviously, there are companies who have made it work (eg. Gitlab) for a long time, but I'd say they are the exception rather than the norm.