POLL: Will WeWork's decline negatively impact the entire co-working space?

Spoke to one of the co-founders of one of the local co-working spaces and he mentioned that WeWork helped "legitimize" co-working similar to how Naruto & Bleach made anime mainstream - now business is booming! If anything, if users do move away from WeWork, these local independent co-working spaces might benefit.

So WeWork situation has been an interesting one. I was talking about this with a friend the other day. If there is an experiment that is being executed by someone and the execution fails, do you start wondering if the experiment is wrong? No. It's the execution. There is a huge thriving community of remote workers, freelancers, small businesses that need space to work out across the world. I believe co-working is here to stay, as long as people are willing to work out of coffee shops and want to be a part of a community they feel they belong. Since a lot of the other business valuations were based off of WeWork, it is definitely going to impact that, but the core business I assume will definitely stay. Hopefully, people would want to go more towards sustainable business models and growth though.

I don't think so. From what I've read (and heard over the years) about WeWork's decline, it has a lot to do with internal mismanagement. To WeWork's credit, they really brought coworking into the mainstream, so I do think other companies will start to emerge as alternative leaders within the space. I'm a member of The Wing and can't imagine not having a coworking space to use as a remote worker. With the rise of the remote work, the need for more coworking space is just going to continue to increase.

I think there will be a little bit of a trust / scepticism issue for a while, but as the attention on weworks shortcomings dissipate I think overall it could benefit the industry, especially for local independent spaces as Lanre mentioned

From the funding perspective: Short-term, it may damage investment in co-working spaces, but long-term it'll be a a net positive, driving better business practices throughout the industry, creating more successful co-working spaces/brands and eventually drive more investment again. Just not at silly valuations like WeWork was.

Libraries are the best co-working spaces. True community events going (not some event disguised as a sales pitch for some company) from arts to concerts, they're free, and they're not a fad and will live out any recession :D

The demand for co-working won't go away. As others have said, it will only grow. Co-working is appealing in so many ways. But I worry prices will go up. If WeWork shrinks or outright collapses, then the co-working supply goes down, even as demand rises. So prices will go up until and unless there is a replacement of the co-working inventory that WeWork shuttered. But even if WeWork doesn't go away, one big question is whether WeWork offices are subsidized by all its investment capital, or whether the fees it charges tenants are actually sustainable for the company. (Same question exists for Uber. We consumers don't pay full cost of Uber rides.) If the office costs were in fact subsidized, well then, there's another reason prices will rise. Because no co-working company with WeWork's amount of capital will appear again for a generation or ever, so co-working spaces are going to have to make their numbers work.

It just puts the focus on creating sustainable co-working businesses, and great unique environments. WeWork was kinda cool, but there was also an uncanny valley aspect to the consistency across their locations. I'm hoping that remote workers will put more value on great, unique spaces and environments since WeWork's "Starbucks of Co-Working" approach isn't sucking the air out of the room.

I wouldn't see why it would. If one company or business has an issue, consumers always move to an alternative. The co-working space is fine.

I think you have to define "impact the space" first. Next, does this startup failure go beyond this vertical?