A counterpoint is that a lot of technological progress so far has been making things a bit shitter but a lot cheaper. Consider self service check outs. They ar

A counterpoint is that a lot of technological progress so far has been making things a bit shitter but a lot cheaper. Consider self service check outs. They are much more painful than a human checkout, but one staff member can run 10 of them at a time. Or IKEA furniture. The old hand made furniture my grandparents had was so much better, but it was so expensive that they had to save for months to get a desk. Another example that I find particularly painful is shop signs. Back a century ago, every town had sign painters who would draw and maintain those beautiful old signs. Nowadays the vast majority are just mass produced printed on metal, plastic or worse (see the LycaMobile signs common in corner shops here). Unsurprisingly, sign writing isn't a very common career now. London busses still use handmade blinds rather than the low resolution LED matrices common elsewhere, which I really appreciate. History is full of humans accepting mediocrity as long as it's even slightly cheaper. That's Ryanair's whole business model.