I think it goes beyond that, where it makes it so that most of who you spend time with are your co-workers, so now there's a strong linkage between your professional and social lives. Which has two negative side effects:

• Social interactions are more and more under the jurisdiction of HR
• The cost of quitting a job is increased, as doing so also means a significant change to your social life.

As for "why not put out suicide nets?" I think these perks are supposed to be the "suicide nets". The modern West's solution to the "depressing company town" problem seems to be to simply make the company town comfortable and pleasant.