It still astonishes me how much this mindset of "everyone needs to work as much as humanly possible regardless of how much stuff actually needs to be done" is baked into our brains.
Maybe the thing start doing when new technologies come along is ask "how can we rearrange ourselves so that now everyone works less time than they did before?"
Many desired goods are scarce, people will compete for scarce goods. There is a market clearing price.
To some the price is acceptable, to others the price seems like it forces them 'to work as much as humanly possible regardless of how much stuff actually needs to be done'.
People can have different desires. Nothing confusing in there.
Not meaningfully, from both directions at the same time. Most of the of goods we consume are produced with large quantities of mechanical labour and have been since the Industrial Revolution got going; conversely, one of the biggest costs we face in the G7 is the land, and the land is mainly expensive because of the other people all bidding against each other to be in good locations.
Visited Nairobi a few years back, and one of my partner’s local friends was complaining about the rent (one year for her in Nairobi was less than one month for me in Cambridge, because it was locals bidding against other locals for rent in both cases), but that friend was still able to get a smart phone (albeit a cheaper model than most people here would be OK with).
Maybe the thing start doing when new technologies come along is ask "how can we rearrange ourselves so that now everyone works less time than they did before?"