You just described investor landlords.

It doesn't benefit them, though; they just prefer it.

There are tons of people who prefer it but don't actually get any benefit out of it.

I've been saying this forever. We don't need new tech to be developed or rolled out, we don't need to move everyone to a city and take a train, we don't need everyone to buy a new electric car, we just need to take away the reason 1/3 or more of driving occurs. And we already proved we can do it. It's insane to not make that part of the climate goals.

This compounds too - less traffic means less need to add more lanes, or run more trains, or pave more parking lots, etc... So basically "bad, unnecessary" construction can go away. From what I can tell, almost no one actually wants a larger highway except because of traffic. But most of the traffic is commuters. We might have enough capacity (if you remove most commuters) for a very very long time to handle tourists, delivery trucks, and emergency services...

I'm an essential worker, so I kept commuting pretty much like normal throughout the pandemic.

During the initial lockdowns I was averaging a whole MPG better just from not having any traffic.

And the real kicker is that my schedule is kind of weird, so I already commute at times when traffic isn't too bad, I normally start at 2:30 in the afternoon and work 12 hours until the 2:30 in the morning (before anyone asks, my job isn't very physically demanding, and I have more and more frequent days off, so 12 hour shifts aren't too bad) so I'm going in after people have been running out to do stuff on their lunch breaks and before schools let out so traffic is minimal then, and I usually don't even see a half dozen other cars on the road when I'm heading home, and some of my shifts are weekends so traffic is usually even lighter during the day. And my commute is only about 10 miles/20 minutes, no highways or anything, just normal semi-rural to suburban main roads.

And so a slight reduction in traffic during my commute into work (and no real difference to my commute home) got me a small but noticeable difference in my average fuel economy. Now all told that means I probably only saved a few gallons, maybe a tank of gas myself, but think of all of the millions of people who commute in much heavier traffic both ways, possibly even further, and how much extra gas they're burning releasing CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere.

Imagine what more people being able to work from home, better public transit and carpooling to reduce number of cars on the road, companies staggering the start/end times of their business days so that everyone isn't commuting at the same time, etc. could do.

Hmmm. How...would they know?

Also, I think there's a question about the legality of your employer trying to enforce what you do in your own home, workday or not.