If you took someone from the 1990s and dumped them in 2026, I think one of the biggest shocks to them would be how optional humans are everywhere. You can't get a human on the phone when you call a business anymore. We check out our own groceries with machines now. We order fast food from a kiosk or app instead of a person. Self-driving taxis. Robots doing work and AI making content. Apps mediating all kinds of relationships (personal, romantic, business, employee-employer) rather than the humans themselves. We've kind of just allowed technology to start making us all irrelevant. What is the return on this investment?

> What is the return on this investment?

~$5T/year in profits from the US, concentrated to the ~10% of American households who hold ~93% of equities, while the socioeconomic and social systems continue towards failure. Progress! /s

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49644650 (citations)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49357337 (citations)

U.S. workers' share of national income falls to a new low - https://www.axios.com/2026/08/06/ai-boom-labor-workers-incom... - August 6th, 2026

Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql)