This is an interesting and often debated topic. Here's my dime. (And you KNEW that I would have a strong opinion after all these years of me, right?)

A lot of points can be addressed by asking questions.

"Real" studio:
What can really be done in a "real" studio that can't be done in a properly treated basement? Does a horn player play better in a "real" studio?

Many parts played together:
Really? It's 2020. People have busy lives. You want to let your project sit dormant until you can get many people to coordinate schedules and then pay for expensive studio time when those same people can visit your basement, or record at home, at their leisure and have as many shots at a part as they need? For free. Or beer. I can't imagine anytime in 2020 that all tracks have to be done at once, and I will not even get into isolation and baffling issues. Lay down a reference track, and go forth and overdub my child. I mean, Rog, what have we done, 2 dozen songs together to some degree? And I couldn't pick you out of a police lineup.

Paying someone who actually knows how to do it right - room that's properly set up for audio, the gear that exceeds the stuff you bought on a budget, and the person at the desk who has forgotten more than most home recording enthusiasts will ever know:
Good points Herb. But riddle me this. Does that guy care where he gets paid? His house or yours? Other than mics, everything is in box now anyway. That person who has forgotten more than we know can do what he does anywhere. And for enthusiasts, face the unwelcome fact that you ain't gonna sell records anyway.

Inertia from six decades of recording is hard to overcome:
So more of that "The horse and buggy was good enough. Why should I change to a car?" The "Why DARE try to learn something new and try it a different way" thinking? When a mind stops looking to expand and take in new knowledge or techniques it starts to die. Get me started on people who whine about being bored during quarantine. Start a garden. Learn a new instrument. Learn how to cook. Write a book. Do some home repairs. Maybe make a bookcase. With Amazon and home delivery from every store in the universe, the nice man in the truck will deliver whatever you need to your door. Sit and wallow or continue to grow. Old age is not a valid excuse to refuse to keep learning. During quarantine, I wrote 6 songs. I learned 3 new software packages. I came up with a dozen new recipes. I bought a project guitar that I am refinishing. I painted a room. I swapped out 8 old electrical outlets for new ones. We are limited only by the boundaries we create for ourselves. "But I miss my frieeeeeeends". It is 2020. You have a computer. You have high speed internet. How many times during the whining times did you reach out and send them a link to a Zoom conference? I bought a new computer, learned how to use OBS, bought the necessary hardware needed to start streaming and I will soon start a Twitch channel playing with scammers. I need more tweaks on the new PC to do it, like installing a virtual computer and learning how to work with HTML better to make my fake bank so they can connect and try to scam me. I am learning more about that every day. Only lazy and stupid people can get bored.

Any music project can be done virtually. These guys did ROUNDABOUT virtually! ROUNDABOUT!! One of the most complex prog songs ever. Now to be honest, this is a bunch from Staten Island that are among the best players I have ever heard. 2 of them play with the current Blue Oyster Cult lineup.

We really don't NEED studios anymore than we NEED mail 6 days a week, or newspapers. "The way I am used to it" is far different from NEED. News is available online as it happens. That paper is a collection of things that happened yesterday. Mail is junk mail and bills. Bill pay is available online for those who don't fear technology. And if you fear using online bill pay, once again, it is 2020. Learn. Refer back to "how to use your quarantine time" above. Mastering engineers? Yep! A different animal. We need those. Not everybody can master. But you never have to even meet your mastering engineer (though we will all meet our Master someday). You FTP files back and forth until he gets it right. I don't get why it is such a giggle-inducing sense of tee-hee glee for people here to tell us about collaborations like what happens here. Many of us are computer savvy to a large degree and sending a file to get a guitar part or a bass line is second nature to the point of being subliminal. Again, 2020!!! Time to stop with the "Cuz that's how I done always done it" mentality.

One of my friends here was involved with an album a few years back where every song had "Love" somewhere in the title. The last song was Rundgren's "Love Is The Answer." He had an idea to recruit every strong vocalist he knew to sing phrases on the outro. He ended up with 22 people playing and singing on that song. None of them ever saw each other face to face. I think he told me that song ended up being 120 tracks. He ended up winning an award for the engineering on that CD.

Do we NEED studios, as in "Would music making stop without them"? Nope! One last time. It's 2020.