Cost matters.

Let's look at a piece of tech that literally changed humankind.

The printing press. We could create copies of books before the printing press. All it did was reduce the cost.

That's an interesting example. We get a new technology, and cost goes down, and volume goes up, and it takes a couple generations for society to adjust.

I think of it as the lower cost makes reaching people easier, which is like the gain going up. And in order for society to be able to function, people need to learn to turn their own, individual gain down - otherwise they get overwhelmed by the new volume of information, or by manipulation from those using the new medium.