It's a matter of time before smart folks in South Asia and Easter Europe move to Latin America to get higher salaries as they get into more US-friendly timezones.
That being said there's a lot of amazing developers in India that are open to working US-work hours for max collaboration
Yeah you don't really need a middle man to "take care of payroll." Most developers in Latam prefer to be contractors on paper, and have a direct relationship with the employer. Most agencies take a 30-50% cut of what employers pay, way better for developers to skip the middleman
Dude - it's way better for companies to hire developers directly, no need for a middle man like Astro that's charging 15% (eg. 15% of $80k/yr = $12k/yr in middle man fees)... platforms like letsdeel.com or remote.com charge as little as $50/mo per person to take care of compliance and payroll
That being said there's a lot of amazing developers in India that are open to working US-work hours for max collaboration