You still pay for a commute-friendly home and office clothes, but you also need a home setup for the other two days. Then half your “in-person” meetings are video calls because everyone chose different days. Fully remote and fully in-office at least make logistical sense.
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Three days works well for newer people on my team. They get enough overlap to ask small questions without scheduling a call for every one. The problem is companies refusing to coordinate which three days.
Coordinated days would fix a lot of my complaint. We have an office full of people wearing headphones in separate calls, which feels like expensive performance art.
The hidden cost is childcare. “Flexible” hybrid can mean paying for five days of coverage because the schedule changes every week.
I still prefer an imperfect middle to either extreme. Some work genuinely improves in person, and some office days are just commuting to use Slack.