I agree with you on the unions bit though for the office-less office, I think it's something that will be increasingly common.  The barriers to starting your own firm are falling - and falling dramatically, hence the existence of funders like ycombinator.  Further, economies of scale have been slowly and quite quickly in some instances, erased because of technology.  It should follow that we will see increasingly more (and different types of) small businesses and the ability of people to leverage off their own unique skill sets will rise.<p>The question then becomes whether or not this will translate into more physical incubator/workspaces or just home offices... this is a tougher call, but with the disappearance of barriers, this will mean more easily that work will happen where it's most productive/valuable - and where this is, because of technology, is changing.