Silicon Valley has been entranced by the idea of “remote working” for decades. For all the billions that Apple, Google, Facebook and their start-up imitators have spent on elaborate headquarters, many software engineers would be happy to swap their starchitect-designed offices for a decent pair of noise-cancelling headphones and work from anywhere.
So while few would be quite so crass as to admit it, China’s coronavirus-enforced lockdowns make for a fascinating case study of remote working on a massive scale. Millions have had to work from home for weeks, prompting a spike in second-hand laptop and tablet sales in China and driving Alibaba’s collaboration app DingTalk to the top of the Chinese App Store charts.
The good news: much of the tech that underpins remote working, such as the video-conferencing service Zoom and the chat app Slack, is finally mature and reliable. The bad news: not much of it comes with a proper user’s manual.