As someone working at Google, there was never any surprise Google did not announce a permanent WFH solution, since it has not been part of the company culture nor did they put out any expectations you would be able to WFH permanently.

so why exactly shouldn't that be possible!? It's not like the work/output decreased (for the most part). The only legitimate way for compensation to drop should be due to competition - allowing remote should also mean allowing more people to apply for a position, and thus, higher supply of potential workers. This _should_ naturally lower compensation, but not immediately.