If I were to rent an office as a freelancer, it would be for two reasons.
One reason is to establish a routine where I wake up, put on my work costume, leave the house, and go to a place where I shall be productive each day. Normal office "hi, how are ya"s would probably add to the authenticity, but constant chatter would be distracting.
The other reason is to have a professional environment to invite clients. If the place is full of people lounging in beanbag chairs, sipping coffee and yakking, then I know a nice coffee shop that would be a lot cheaper.
1. Vanity: Impress clients with a cool lobby / conference room (WeWork's free beer and ping-pong tables often does the job well, especially when folks are used to cubicles)
2. Focus: A space to sit quietly without distraction; open office space totally fails here, and I'm pretty people listen to music while working in these environments solely to cancel out the noise of others.
3. Collaboration: Having smart people around you makes you smarter. This work in a traditional office, but I've been to a few WeWorks where I was pretty uninspired with the people around me. It was not that they were dumb, but that they worked in industries so far off from my own (fashion v. law) that we had almost nothing to talk about.
I've run my startup for quite some time. I normally rent fancy conference rooms at hourly rates or go to trendy restaurants for #1 (they're expensive, but better/cheaper than getting a monthly plan). I learned to focus at home for #2 (takes some time to get used to). By far, #3 is the hardest, but literally every person I hired was in a different state or abroad, so having a physical office wouldn't have helped unless I forced them to move.
One reason is to establish a routine where I wake up, put on my work costume, leave the house, and go to a place where I shall be productive each day. Normal office "hi, how are ya"s would probably add to the authenticity, but constant chatter would be distracting.
The other reason is to have a professional environment to invite clients. If the place is full of people lounging in beanbag chairs, sipping coffee and yakking, then I know a nice coffee shop that would be a lot cheaper.