"Claude 4 Opus can technically rewrite auto-generated transcripts for me. But since it’s not possible for me to have it improve over time and learn my preferences, I still hire a human for this."
Sure, just as a select few people still hire a master carpenter to craft some bespoke exclusive chestnut drawer, but that does not take away 99% of bread and butter carpenters were replaced by IKEA, even though the end result is not even in the same ballpark both from an esthetic as from a quality point of view.
But as IKEA meets a price-point people can afford, with a marginally acceptable product, it becomes self reinforcing. The mass volume market for bespoke carpentry dwindles, being suffocated by a disappearing demand at the low end while IKEA (I use this a a standing for low cost factory furniture) gets ever more economy of scale advantages allowing it to eat further across the stack with a few different tiers of offer.
What remains is the ever more exclusive boutique market top end, where the result is what counts and price is not really an issue. The 1% remaining master-carpenters can live here.
Meanwhile, millions of people can afford much better quality furniture than they ever could from a carpenter. How many lives has mass produced decent quality (not top end quality, but decent) improved vs how many has it ruined?
Surely these arguments have been done over and over again?
Not sure. My parent's and grandparent's furniture was (is) definitely higher quality than the IKEA stuff we have, and it's not like we are (even relatively) poorer than them, or that my ancestors spenf exceptionally on furniture.
Sure, just as a select few people still hire a master carpenter to craft some bespoke exclusive chestnut drawer, but that does not take away 99% of bread and butter carpenters were replaced by IKEA, even though the end result is not even in the same ballpark both from an esthetic as from a quality point of view.
But as IKEA meets a price-point people can afford, with a marginally acceptable product, it becomes self reinforcing. The mass volume market for bespoke carpentry dwindles, being suffocated by a disappearing demand at the low end while IKEA (I use this a a standing for low cost factory furniture) gets ever more economy of scale advantages allowing it to eat further across the stack with a few different tiers of offer.
What remains is the ever more exclusive boutique market top end, where the result is what counts and price is not really an issue. The 1% remaining master-carpenters can live here.