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Comment by saddlerustle | Hacker News Reader

> Greater and greater value is being generated in the economy due to these increasing efficiencies.

This is very unclear and it depends on what measurements you look at. Lots of economists claim we've had historically low productivity growth in the last two decades - eg Total-Factor Productivity growth has been very low (~0.5%/year) every year since ~2005.

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Another measure is major sector labor productivity (labor inputs vs outputs):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_productivity#/media/...

But now the economy has shrunk by at least 30% according NPR...

OK cool you brilliant a-hole: tell me the GDP impact of a 30% GDP implosion, not even considering the fact that they are not even stating the actual numbers across a ll industries, which means, the GDP is F* and that the economy is WAY LESS

he deleted his reply.... so it looks like I an=m replyingg to my self

The little device in everyone’s pocket can do is much that required other people’s time and labor. Purchasing travel, researching real estate markets, checking into a hotel, comparing prices, obtaining product information and reviews, etc.

If I need to find something at Home Depot or Target or Lowes, I don’t need a person to help me anymore. I go to their website and it tells me exactly where the item is.

All of these little efficiencies add up to me needing fewer other people to help me.

Improvements in consumer technology is arguably offset by lots of areas of the economy becoming less efficient every year. Consider infrastructure, health care and education - those sectors require more labor now to produce the same or less output than they use to.

Declining real wages for decades are my evidence that supply curves are ahead of demand curves. I don’t see why education needs more labor, the number of children will be declining for the foreseeable future. More importantly, the buyers of that labor (government) are famously stingy and with budgets already strained with pension and other debt, I doubt they’re going to give up any extra wage gains.

not that we should go back, but it's worth noting that women entering the workforce probably greatly increased the supply side of the equation. Concurrently we're needing less and less people whilst also trying to figure out what to do with all this new supply introduced.

Yes, that was also a huge factor.

And yet, people are still helpful. I go to the lowes search bar and draw a total blank. I can describe a part I need to another human, but I sure as hell don't know its archaic catalog name, and will probably buy the wrong part if I order online. As a result, even in a pandemic, all the hardware stores by me have lines wrapped around the parking lot because brick and mortar is just better from a consumer perspective.

I've been fleeced buying junk online, from amazon or even less shady places, too many times for whatever price efficiencies online offers to work itself above actually handling the product before you put money down and own it. Running to fedex to print and ship my amazon return is a cost to bear if you have a busy life.

I know people are helpful. The point is that fewer people can do more.

Which means increased productivity.

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