Lately, I've come to the conclusion that WFH tends to benefit older devs with more experience at the expense of their younger colleagues. If you are established/experienced and already have a strong network in your field, working from home is great because it gives you more flexibility and less distractions from your work. If you're a junior dev however, working from home creates a higher barrier to asking questions/learning from more experienced folks on your team and also negatively impacts your ability to network/meet people in your field.
I'm sure that this is super situational dependent but on the whole I think it negatively impacts junior devs but I would love to hear some other people's thoughts.
I personally don't see a lot of difference in pairing remotely over sitting next to each other, as someone with a non-standard keyboard and layout I actually find it a lot easier, because I can watch and do some doc reading/research/tickets during that.
If you are more hands-off and don't engage with your younger colleagues, then yes, absolutely.
I don't really know how you would just magically absorb knowledge and not wasting all your time if you listened to everything that everyone in your physical vicinity says. (Including cursing, talking about sportsball results, etc.pp) But maybe people who are good at listening while doing something else see this differently.
What I do miss are the coffee break conversations, hopefully also with people from other teams and not only your own, but I think this can be remedied by going to the office occasionally, certainly not something I need on a daily basis.
I'm sure that this is super situational dependent but on the whole I think it negatively impacts junior devs but I would love to hear some other people's thoughts.