I think he’s making a point about mechanization inevitably causing both accelerated progress and also, in some ways, reduced quality. There’s a challenge to grapple with there for traditional craftsmanship.

It’s a style-transfer of OPs post onto Luddites. This same tired argument in 3 parts gets made every time a potentially job-destroying technology gets introduced or discussed.

Since nobody has made the concluding argument yet, I’ll supply it; the Luddites were correct that it (mechanization) would destroy their lucrative profession, they missed the degree to which it would enable many other lucrative professions, and they were right that many Luddites would not make the transition.

Society was net better off but there were definitely losers in the transition.