I think you make a reasonable point, but I'll also echo some replies that remote work has absolutely been a possibility for many industries for much longer than a decade. I've been working 100% remotely for 21 years, and some of the people I was learning from in the beginning had already been working remotely for years before me.

That said, I've been a professional programmer for all that time, which in my mind is practically made for working remotely. It's definitely taken longer for some other industries to be as amenable, which I believe has been due to the people in charge, not the profession.

I agree that general inertia has something to do with it, but that's a terrible reason to accept the way things are.