Realistically, while shipping costs will play a part, the prices are going to have a lot to do with the fact that Iceland's a separate, small national market. It's not even in the EU customs union, though it is in the Single Market. You can be sure that the biggest retailers who do operate there aren't losing money in Iceland. It also seems to be a hothouse economy with incomes and costs driven by high-wage industries related to tech and, apparently, cod. Not completely unlike Ireland or Switzerland but an order of magnitude smaller, and with no membership in a large customs zone.
So in some ways it's a really bad place for fully remote workers to choose to live: a bit like moving to Seattle! Or at least it can be said that you'd be using your freedom of movement exclusively as an opportunity to party down (or maybe to raise children somewhere nice) and not at all as an opportunity to save any money. On the other side of the ledger, I suppose that if you really must leave the US and Canada (or can't get in) and you want to live as close as possible to the US Eastern or Central timezone in a nice fully-developed country which is very easy to navigate using only English there aren't many other options. The UK doesn't seem to welcome digital nomads and its Home Office is no fun to interact with, anyway; Ireland might not be that much cheaper these days and it's certainly not as glamorous a playground as Iceland. Honestly I'd look into finding a posh, safe neighbourhood in Barbados first, though. https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp I suppose one other advantage of Iceland might be the chance to network with other people in tech, but maybe you'd have to at least get conversational in Icelandic to really pull that off?
>> That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.
Does the nation subsidize costs? I went to a couple of countries where staples were remarkably inexpensive and later learned that most of them were subsidized by the national government.
Nope, not at all. BUT on further thought, beef at a local burger joint is locally produced. Everything else (wheat, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, sauces, etc) is usually imported.
Of course at McDonalds and Burger King, everything is imported and they cost about the same (or less) than what a burger costs at a local joint.
I believe Iceland also generates its own electricity from geothermal energy.
Import is super cheap unless it's something perishable like fresh fish and salad and needs to come over via plane. Local delivery normally costs much more.
In NZ right now a kilo of tomatoes is on par with one kilo of chicken.
That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.