There are legitimate reasons for hiring someone who you can occasionally meet with. There are also legitimate reasons to hire someone in your own country. Or at least in a country with a reasonable facsimile of the rule of law and fair access to courts by foreigners.

Of course, there are very legitimate reasons/incentives to hire someone from your own jurisdiction. I'm just not a fan of cheap offshoring.

just basic supply and demand combined with the fact that people working in the same timezone and office are still more productive than remote. big startup opportunity if you can actually solve those issues with remote work. slack, notion, and google doc helped a bit, but its not perfect.