As a homeowner building drywall skills is super important and money saving skill. With some basic tools you can easily build super high quality surfaces if you

As a homeowner building drywall skills is super important and money saving skill. With some basic tools you can easily build super high quality surfaces if you learn how to mud and sand. Drywall is an amazingly maintainable product - my guess is that most homes out there have all kinds of drywall patches applied that behind the walls would look like a horror show but to the casual eye is flawless. The finish level is housing almost always implies using some product that is mixed with water for the finish level: drywall mud, cement, thinset, etc. The maintainability of these surfaces is key. It certainly is a natural maxima: cheap and easily workable. Even if the wall surface is really bad you can easily apply a skim coat and your wall looks new. What the article didn't touch on is that there certainly is room here for automation at scale: the process of installing many panels, taping, mudding, etc does require skill. There are videos out there of robots doing this work but not sure if it competes with a crew of skilled workers. I don't find the finish on cars to have this same kind of maintainability. Fixing / matching paint on a car is hard for me.