It's rare in nature when the optimal placement of a 'dial' is at an endpoint (0 or 100). In everyday life, when I see people making such a choice, it's usually because they focused on a single attribute at the expense of all other considerations (e.g. "cheapest" or "best battery life"). While there's value in doing less work, ignoring the other criteria means the choice is not the best.

After almost two decades of professional experience (including a few years of consulting), I'm becoming more convinced that employees often make a similar 'lazy' decision when they choose full time employment. That decision is only optimal for under performers (and only for as long as they can hold on to the gig).

Selling labor in units of time offers no possibility for economic profit. The value of any productivity gains are realized by the employer. This is not the case for a business (or a consultant), where productivity gains yield profit.

EDIT: Consultants sell time too, but are free to adjust their rates as they see fit. Employees have significant barriers to changing their 'price'; infact it often involves a job change. Another challenge for the employee is demonstrating their value created due to the extremely complex structuring of most companies (this makes it hard to objectively justify a raise).