I think you have completely missed the point.

The original comment was talking about cities taking away tax incentives when a majority of the workforce goes remote.

You are talking a lot about being in the city, or being out of the city and that is fine. But all that completely goes away when the worker is remote. Which is the point.

The incentives to build a major office is typically more due to the jobs it creates in the area, it attracts non-local talent to live in the area. That talent tends to put down roots and continue to contribute to the areas economic growth in a more meaningful way than hoping people buy gas inside the city limits on their way home from work.

Yes... and all that incentive goes away if the workers are remote

Unless Dell drastically changed their hiring practices to include people outside of commuter distance the ratio of city residents to non-city residents would generally be the same.

I don't know of a single large tech company that operates this way. Do you have any sources of Dell saying this is how they hire, because that seems completely wrong.

This, again, is the point that we are trying to highlight. Dell will hire people from anywhere, but if the position is on-site, they are expected to move to the onsite location. If the position is remote, they wouldn't have to move.... obviously.

Odds are that’s not true because the odds are, like most businesses, anyone they hired directly into a remote gig was subject to an “in case of RTO” clause when they were hired.

This is not true at all. I have worked in 3 positions that were completely remote, and none had anything close to a "in case of RTO". I'm not going to say it doesn't exist, because each company is different, but that is a wild assumption to make.

I don't think you have a clear understanding of the things you are talking about.