What seems to work: Geographically distributed but autonomous product-dev centers, with remote workers aligned within a certain timezone.

What doesn't seem to work: Outsourcing pure dev work to timezones with no overlap.

I don't believe the above will change even if things become more remote-friendly. Perhaps we'll see more dev centers pop up to service the needs / wants / cultural or language asynchronicity of a given region, but that would lend more toward expansion than cost reduction. This also resonates with the approaches being discussed that I've read and heard first hand from company leaders during COVID.

If there is no benefit for paying a premium why not go with the commodity? Why go with an outmoded restriction to only hire blacksmiths in bounds of the south side of the original city limits? (Because they didn't want to smell the smoke in the posh north side while requiring the smiths live within the innermost set of city walls so they were available during a siege).