[alibarber]

No, I think people are missing the wood for the trees here.

The fact that these visas are becoming available means that governments are wising up to the fact that people have been working remotely on tourist visas and want in on it. They want to be able to charge for it, or set a limit on who can do it, or tax it.

Now that these visas exist, and immigration officers know that, it’s only obvious that they’ll start to ask ‘tourists’ if they plan on working remotely or not. You can lie all you want, but if they find evidence (two laptops, notebooks, equipment) then good luck.

What happened in the past is just that.

[petronio]

I think you're confusing their goal. It's not that they have a problem with people working remotely on tourist visas, it's that they want them to do it for longer as it brings economic benefit to the country.

If they disliked the idea they wouldn't be creating new visas for the purpose, since that only makes it more prevalent and normalized.