What I see happen at these places too is that while in a hushed voice, people tend to gossip _a lot_ throughout the day. And the gossip has to be interspersed with citation, because a plain old chewing the fat without any authority is a waste of time, of course. And walk their dogs by...

But I guess it doesn't matter much when money is aplenty.

The other subtle thing is that you are being stripped of any privacy --we all get lumped together. Stripped naked of your individual humanity and sent into a human pen to do your work in a commune. It's great for some people, but one has to realize what is being taken away in the name of the unassailable communication and collaboration (and who in their right minds would want to go against that grain).