Because they don't have the people to teach online students. The academia is a community and a lifestyle. The people who choose that lifestyle generally don't

Because they don't have the people to teach online students. The academia is a community and a lifestyle. The people who choose that lifestyle generally don't want to spend too much time teaching outside the community. Teaching is a lot of work, a lot of bureaucracy, and a lot of hard deadlines, and it's not particularly rewarding if the students are just names on screen. Maybe if people paid higher taxes and higher tuition fees, universities could hire teachers to "just work here" and pay them competitive salaries.