I think there are really several related but ultimately independent questions here: (1) Can an online/hybrid degree ever be developed that provides sufficient training for the safe/ethical clinical practice of psychology; (2) Will the field as a whole accept/endorse such a model for purposes of credentialing; and (3) Will the program be viewed as equivalent (versus "lesser than") to traditional degrees.
I believe #1 is theoretically possible, but very difficult to do well. I do not believe I've seen a model I would say does this effectively. #2 is a complicated question. I have little faith in APA as an entity and I could see greed coercing them into this even against the better judgment of many/most members. #3 I think is likely to be a hard no, at least from me and most people I know. That doesn't mean all of their graduates will be viewed negatively, but like prof schools I think it will be an uphill battle for these folks.
Reflecting on my own experiences over the previous few years, I just don't see how an online-only model could work. I actually think its more viable for clinical training than it is for research training. While there are exceptions, a huge portion of research in psychology simply must be done in-person due to equipment needs or just the nature of the topics in question. I've been trying - desperately - to figure out a way to create a lab culture that replicates my grad school experience during COVID and have yet to find a way to do it. Without in-person interaction you just miss too much. Same goes for faculty colleagues/collaborators. A lot of good has come out of this and some things CAN be moved online, but some things are missing. I moved institutions mid-COVID and it has been exceedingly slow to get collaborations going because we simply never see each other. The proverbial "water cooler" conversations we all despised are actually pretty important in hindsight. I think that's even more true at the graduate student level folks are still being oriented to the field and being exposed to new ideas. A paper just came out showing that virtual meetings are effective for run-of-the-mill stuff, but suck for idea generation (
Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation - Nature). That certainly jives with my experience. We can do quick updates on the status of papers, but the "essence" of science where we wax philosophical about the fundamental meaning of xyz, brainstorm whole new ways of analyzing a dataset that bridges multiple fields, etc. simply don't happen. In part because zoom is an awkward venue for it. In part because no one is going to set up a zoom meeting for random informal discussion about articles they read until areas of overlap are discovered and collaborations are born. We can coast for a bit without those things and I think we've been doing that in science, but true progress and innovation is going to slow down eventually.
Long story short, I think online is a great venue for training "technician" type positions, but we'll quickly run into problems using it for higher-level more cognitively demanding positions. That doesn't mean elements can't be transitioned online, but I don't think the core experience can be.