If we can figure out how to make remote work successful in general rather than in a few headline-grabbing examples, everyone here will be directly competing with people whose annual rent is less than your monthly rent.

That’ll be great for the world, but not for us — it’ll make this argument about €50k/year salaries depressing our wages seem bizarre to future generations.

While I agree that this needs to be the future, nearly all current development shows that this isn't the case - worldwide. I couldn't name a country with a strong software industry where it isn't concentrated in one or two large cities.