When i see this kind of discussion here and in HN i think it mostly miss the primary point..
You would be more to the point if we were talking about the industrial era which can automate even the experience into machinery.
But things like software are heavily based on knowledge retention.
Knowledge retention is about attracting talent, and make sure they evolve their knowledge and keep that knowledge there.
So you need a good quality of life, career and financial possibilities, good universities, a good culture with individual freedoms.
Its all about the "human gold". And the countries that will retain this sort of talents are cannot be optimized to also be industrial powerhouses, because the balances are different.
Anyway remote labor will change things a lot also, and we will see how things will turn out. But work and quality of life balance will become really important, and industrial sweat shops wont be as attractive in my opinion.
I hope that talent get more spread out instead of concentrated as is now, giving we are going more remote..
Anyway, i guess a lot of parts of EU will become more palatable as the physical place where you are at become less important.
I predict that small towns in Italy, Portugal or France with mostly old people will get more trendy giving the houses will be more affordable and people will be able to create their kids in a more healthy environment.
Pandemic will change faster the assumptions we had about how we should live our lives, and i think loneliness will hurt us more as the value of money compared to what is lost by pursuing it will become less appealing.
The industrial era wisdom will get reviewed and some things wont make any sense anymore. (For instance, packing too many people in gigantic towns, lowering the quality of life, country life will get more trendy with time in my opinion, people living in small communities of 20 families in rural areas)