Tele-presence has a long way to go, and the network infrastructure too, but it will obviously, eventually, get to the point where it's indistinguishable from being in the same room, minus the physical contact. But to your point, it's not even a given that would help much.
Even with that, you still suffer mostly from time zones. You're just not going to collaborate the same ways with someone on the other side of the planet. That just means barriers to entry and more opportunity for those brave enough to try and ultimately get a system that works for them.
I think there's a remote-work bias which isn't fully born out from the evidence. It helps if you can somehow start with perfectly trustworthy peers, because I think a large part of hiring local is keeping tabs and keeping control. If you already know people who happen to be remote, versus trying to hire someone you've never met before remotely, the former can work perfectly fine, the later is [currently] nearly impossible.
There's probably legal and tax issues to deal with too, but I'm going to hand wave assume they do not negate the potential benefits and could just as easily work out in favor of the foreign independent contractor vs. local salaried employee.