Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, ability of an engineer to get on a plan

Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, ability of an engineer to get on a plane/car/train/boat and meet face-to-face in a reasonable amount of time, and so forth. Remote work within borders is one thing, but remote work from different continents is an entirely different beast. Not to mention the sheer difference in labour-related laws and conventions across the world and how little recourse you may have if - let's say - your employee decides to take your source code with them and resell. Or take the idea and start a product themselves. Or anything similar that you could very easily sue locally. How much trouble would you go to sue? Translate and certificate every document? Comply with local laws regarding representation? Can you even sue? You may think these are extreme examples, and yes it all tends to work out in general, but even with local employees people sometimes get burn so you need to take these into account when jumping into something uncertain. It's becoming more common for sure but there are risks and they are not null.