I find it telling that most people who start an online course never finish them - why? The experience isn't worth it.
Just like a video call hasn't replaced person-person interaction, nor can an online course truly replace an in-person class - so many more things happen in the classroom or at a university than at home. There is intelligence in human interaction. This is what silicon valley misses.
But a minority are far better than in-person.
Toss digital scaling in, and it's not a question of if, but when and how. There are real problems people haven't solved, but most of those have to do with how students discover and find good courses, accreditation, etc.
I wouldn't go this far. Enrolling to an online course is essentially an effortless endeavour, unlike on-campus studying. You don't pay anything (or pay less), you don't have to move physically, you (sometimes) can go at your own pace, you can take just this one course instead of the whole curriculum, etc.
I believe some courses could be taken online. For example, here is an amazing course on Algorithms and Data Structures by Robert Sedgewick https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1? at Coursera. It works really well for the online format. So, not all online classes suck.
My major was Physics and I was teaching all five years of the Graduate school. I do not have a slightest clue how is it possible to teach Physics remotely at the acceptable quality.