> It would be weird if human labor became worthless and that didn't lower the cost of living, though it's something that could very well happen in a depression

> It would be weird if human labor became worthless and that didn't lower the cost of living, though it's something that could very well happen in a depression and extensive structural unemployment. the problem with economic events is time. most simple models and equations don't "balance out" instantaneously, so to speak, due to the temporal lag between decisions and consequences. as businesses pursue better quarterly profits and shiny year-over-year results through automating the previously un-automatible and reducing the labor force, they risk creating unemployment but not zero or near-zero cost goods. the consequence of unemployment isn't felt immediately, which is why it can be very hard to stop things from spiraling out of control. but at some point purchasing power drops off, reducing sales... and on it goes. at some point we might reach "free shit made and delivered by robots", but there's a substantial, possible rather brutal gap between here and there.