Nah, they're right. In fact, "self-service" is one of the biggest value transfers from people to capital owners, a society-wide "fast one" the computing industry pulled over everyone.

It's cool that you can do something yourself with a computer, whether it's ordering food or picking clothes or booking a trip. But, market doing market things, that can quickly became a have to, which is much less cool.

It's a problem that's hard to see until you're certain age (and therefore easily dismissed as whining of old people yelling at cloud(s)) - it's because most people in the west start with no money and lots of free time to burn, and gradually become extremely time-poor as their start working and accrue responsibilities (and $deity forbid, start a family).

Correct.

The smartest people in academia get promoted to positions that used to come with administrative staff.

Now they’re expected to do all of that with a computer, which is easy right?

So now they spend 30% or more of their time administrationating their position, rather than delegating those duties to their admin staff.

That’s less time teaching and innovating.

Meanwhile, the increase in administration costs of learning institutions has massively outpaced all other costs as a fraction of total.