I don't understand what the problem is.
If I work a station in Fiji and the operator is 5 miles or 5000 miles away, what do I care?
My job is the same as it always was. Get the signal to Fiji and have a radio in Fiji send the signal back.
I did the very same, regardless. As long as the station is actually in Fiji how would I know or care about the rest?
Why are we so worried about what's going on in the other guy's shack? Why does how hard or easy it is for him have anything to do with what I accomplished?
Some of you are going to have to give up ham radio. You're way too worried about mode, the other guy's station, and a hundred other things that you do not control and never will. And, apparently, more every day. It is, as AA6YQ points out, a technical hobby. Expect change.
I'm amazed some of you haven't died of an aneurism.
Besides, some of you have probably worked dozens of remote stations now and did not know it. In these cases, tell me how your sense of accomplishment was diminished. Is it retroactively diminished when someone tells you that "so and so was operating PJ2 from Kansas?" Wow. That's working way, way too hard at something that's hard enough as it is. Maybe you shouldn't try and find out.
Maybe you should just settle for working the call signs you hear and let someone else be the killjoy cops. Just an idea.
If you want to work radio, traditionally, I have no objection. Especially if you insist on plopping your butt down on Godforsaken Island yourself. Major props to you if you do.
But, stateside, sometimes the traditional way is even easier now. I just worked an A4 on SSB, fairly easily, probably because PSKReporter told me there was another A4 on the same band running FT8. Less competition is fine with me. More stations, more activity is also fine with me.
There's plenty and enough out there to make it harder, after all.