It's hard to know which direction causality goes here. More personal interactions are often more expensive because they can't be systematized and specialized li

It's hard to know which direction causality goes here. More personal interactions are often more expensive because they can't be systematized and specialized like an assembly line. So what came first: service providers pulling away from offering more personal service or consumers always opting for the cheapest, most optimized option? One could also argue that this race to the bottom has been a great boon to companies and "the managerial class" that are charged with optimizing this stuff and has been responsible for some of the rising wealth inequality.