Will enhanced backwards compatibility mean the end of low effort remasters?

No... if the current generation is any indication, it will have no effect on the industry.

When the industry sees it can get away with selling an emulated version of the game with some graphical filters, instead of a (most costly) "true" remake, and it doesn't affect sales as much, they will dust off old franchises like it is a garage sale. Look at Halo or Mario 64.

Also, I don't know where you are getting some of that information. "True" backwards compatibility would be if I put my Bluray of Folklore for PS3 or SMT Nocturne for PS2 and they run as in the old hardware. I haven't seen anything like that in the news. If anything, they are talking about compiling a list of the most popular games and making sure they work. That doesn't include older hardware, and I believe MS will be better at it than Sony (due to their consoles being mostly the same architecture), so I have no trust the PS5 will recognize my discs of Shaolin Monks or Sonic Generations...

Remasters that simply up the resolution? Nah. 1080p is still a standard and upscales to 4k very well, ao there's no real reason to remaster and re release a PS4/Xbox One game.

More remasters of 7th gen and back games? Yes, that sounds good, I'd take some of those, those games usually need UI improvements, framerate bunps, and somebsnti-aliasing anyway.

Redone geaphics don't make much sense for most eighth gen titles either, as most still look fine, especially with a resolution bump.

i imagine the ROI on remasters- especially highly successful titles- is extremely appealing. even the most-moderate of successes get them (see: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning; or should i say RERECKONING).

for an industry that is increasingly risk adverse- a remaster seems like the safest move. the initial investment is already done- you just pay a small team to put a new coat of polish on it. and people show up to buy them.

Of course not because they will remaster games that are old enough where they can add in some very basic options that backwards compatibility doesn’t offer and serve it up as new. Sure I can play Alan Wake on my XB1X right now but it looks pretty grimey and runs at a capped 30fps. But.. if they released a remaster with some reworked texture options and some other bells and whistles.. well now that’s a completely different game.

I think there's always gonna be an opportunity to release a "definitive edition" with the DLC, and with a slightly sharper resolution and frame rate. That Digital Foundry video on Series X backwards compatibility pointed out that games coded to run at 30 will still run at 30 despite the higher resolution. So it'd be opportunity to sell something with 4k 60fps.

Really, a bunch of current gen games that got nudged up to 1440p or a dynamic resolution and a solid 30 or 60fps with BC can now be rereleased with a remaster to run at a locked 4k60 or 4k120. What a tongue twister of a sentence.

There's always something to be improved. Which isn't always a bad thing, as an optimized version for first time buyers can be nice to get. Can that sort of improvement be patched in to existing versions? I dunno, I don't know computers, but saying it can't is an easy way for publishers to resell old games as new games. And if there's little to no upgrade, you can still get away with reselling a collection for a bundled price with a steelbook or whatever.

Edit: Yep, I thought that last sentence into existence moments later.

That NFS remaster has really wound you up hasn't it?
Getting free upgrades for games you already own is awesome, but i wouldn't count on every backwards compatible game receiving perfect resolution bumps and locked 60fps, it's more complicated than that.
There are still plenty of older games that could use a good re-release, even if the updates are relatively minor, to have older games running easily with some modern conveniences is a great way to keep them available and playable. MGS and MGS2 were recently released on GOG but they're the original PC versions tweaked slightly so that they run, they do work but they're in a pretty awful state, that's an example where a cheap and cheerful update would be VERY welcome (even though Konami already own remasters of MGS2 and 3, and are doing absolutely nothing with them).
I don't know if or when companies will decide to "remaster" current gen games on the next gen, i don't expect to see much of that for a while, i feel like we've peaked on graphics so updates to those games will be very minor.

Edit: Just remembered that Spider Man remaster, ray tracing i guess is the answer, add ray tracing to everything... for what that's worth.

There's always the possibility that whatever backwards compatibility solution doesn't provide the performance a remaster could. Remasters also provide the completely new crowd to buy in, rather than looking in the used market.

Yea, there will be more effort involved and they will be more expensive as well.

Nope. Any opportunity they can take to sell you the same thing but slightly prettier with a premium price tag, they will. The gaming public has already proven they'll eat that crap up.

They may slow down a bit since those previous iterations are more readily available, but they're certainly not going to stop. They will keep doing them so long as there is room for a relatively small team to bump up the visual fidelity even just slightly - and that bar for improvement may be lower than I thought based on that NFS: Hot Pursuit remaster looking like damn near nothing was changed.