If the company just wanted to have some job done, be it on site, or especially remotely, they'd use a vendor or contractor. That's what they do for moving the furniture, painting, watering the plants, payroll, advertising, legal, auditing, etc.

An employee is someone who, as well as just doing their job, sporadically does other things like maintaining relationships, product ideas, interviewing candidates, training new hires, and whatever other ad-hoc stuff is required to keep a company operational. If you want to be hired as an employee, and potentially get promoted, etc, then doing your actual job is just a bare minimum to not get fired (and maybe not even that, with layoffs being so popular), and an ability to contribute to all the other stuff is what will get you hired and keep you employed.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a contractor, or just doing your job / the bare minimum, but companies need employees who can do more to keep existing, and its up to you if you want to be one or not.

In an office, “being there” becomes a proxy for productivity, even if it’s not accurate.

Once you remove that, the gap becomes very visible, and instead of fixing measurement, a lot of companies just revert back to what they’re used to.

So it ends up looking like a remote work problem, but it’s really a management/measurement problem.

You're assuming they don't trust remote employees? They may just not want remote employees.

It's a perfectly valid stance for a company to say, "You know what, remote work just isn't for us." They don't need to justify it any more than you need to justify your preference for remote work.

It's not right or wrong, it's just a preference.