> It might be tiny but this saving was then passed on to every downstream purchaser of the widgets who, with that left over money .... could employ someone else

> It might be tiny but this saving was then passed on to every downstream purchaser of the widgets who, with that left over money .... could employ someone else to do something. So a company used technology to automate someone out of a job but some downstream company isn't also going to do that with their new money? The reason technology lead to more jobs is because it created exponential growth. The lesson of the last 200 years is that we can grow indefinitely. But that is already falling apart. The growth that is happening now is optimization. And it's happening at every level of society and it's not good for workers.