3 ms·
A few years ago, I read an essay that pointed out that the typewriter meant that people could write five or so times faster than before. And of course, what hap
by rvense 3y ago
A few years ago, I read an essay that pointed out that the typewriter meant that people could write five or so times faster than before. And of course, what happened was not that people spent less times typing, quite the opposite. This plays out again and again, of course.
- zo1 3y agoThe typewriter is irrelevant to the value equation at that point. You're paying for "potential" human labour, and that's governed by scarcity and fundamental limitations of how much a human can physically do. I.e. you're paying for 8 hours of that humans time, not their output. They still expect 8 hours, whether you output 10wpm or 100. Now are there some employers happy with splitting the difference in gains with their employees? Sure, but the market's emergent behavior will favor employers that get X output per $, not X-15%. But remember, this same equation applies to the employer. So they can't tell the market "hey we can now produce this same product 5x more cheaply but pretty please will you keep paying the same while we reduce our expenses by 5x?" In my head, it's essentially the same, perhaps I'm not explaining very well.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thunky 3y ago> But remember, this same equation applies to the employer. I don't think it does. > So they can't tell the market "hey we can now produce this same product 5x more cheaply but pretty please will you keep paying the same while we reduce our expenses by 5x?" Why would they advertise their internal efficiency gains? And even if they can't hide it, why would it force them to lower their prices? It doesn't affect the supply/demand equation. It just makes them more profitable.