My guess at what in the early days of personal computing, i.e., ~1985, really caused the rapid growth: Replacing the typewriters. The labor of using typewrite

My guess at what in the early days of personal computing, i.e., ~1985, really caused the rapid growth: Replacing the typewriters. The labor of using typewriters was enormous. So, replacing a typewriter with just a PC, maybe with only a floppy disk for file storage, and just an early, crude dot matrix printer saved a lot of money. Next, electronic spreadsheets saved a lot of money. Next, with just dial-up connections, we got email which in many cases was a big improvement, speed, cost on what the USPS, FedEx, etc. provided. ... Now for shoppers, on-line shopping can often yield better shopping results with huge savings in time and effort and also often money. Apparently now some investors are looking at the Internet and remote work as a way for workers and families to get huge savings on costs of housing and transportation. Then, nearly everything in the usual parts and pieces of the economy is open to huge cost savings via automation based on computing and the Internet, in simple terms, having some robot do the work instead of a human. E.g., it's spring and time to plow the field and put in a crop of corn. So, click on an icon, and the tractor fires itself up, plows the field, and then puts in the seed. And the tractor was made nearly entirely by robots, maybe including some 3D printing. Then in the supply chain, the corn goes to feed hogs, chickens, and to fatten up cattle, and the work there also gets heavily automated. Sure, cornmeal can also be used for tasty breading for fried fish and chicken! Uh, maybe surprisingly soon and quite broadly we don't really need more farm workers but fewer and, then, more developers of the automation ...! Developing all the needed automation is not so easy now, in particular, while can save big on Opex can have a big initial Capex. So, we need better tools for developing the automation -- robots, artificial intelligence, whatever call it. Hmm .... With the automation, will (finally) have good numerical data on nearly all parts of the supply chain from a mine, farm, forest, etc. all the way to the dinner table, etc. Then we will notice that with the good, new numerical data, can get some cost savings by the now old subject optimization, mathematical programming, from linear programming, nonlinear programming, ... stochastic optimal control, etc. And with all the good data on the supply chain, should be able to do some analysis and do well investing the commodities markets. It used to be, "Machines should work. Humans should think." Maybe it will be "Machines do the work, and humans enjoy life", e.g., pursue family, art, science, understand the universe, etc. Uh, for that future, we have a lot of software to write!