That's definitely true, especially in that the smaller margins drive a lot of the search for cheaper labor.
But the competition, along with technological innovation, is also generating incredible efficiency. Things that would have been literally impossible decades before are now commonplace. Prices may drift upwards, but in many areas, the raw power that we get for that price has increased vastly more. And so what I'd say is that the increased productivity has meant that it takes fewer people to make the "same things", which in turn means that the margins can be lower because they need to support fewer people. But that's all a big cycle, so I suppose you could also enter it at the point of lowered margins supporting fewer people, which in turn drives greater productivity through competition. And there's probably all sorts of potential substeps in there that I'm eliding. :)
There's also the invisible component of quality control; by some definitions we'd be much more "productive" if we spent less of our resources on making sure that stuff doesn't catch fire when plugged in, doesn't go bad in a day, doesn't choke babies, is accessible to handicapped people, and doesn't collapse in the next earthquake. But we've made a trade-off to spend more of our resources taking care of those things, and as a result there're often layers of quality surrounding us that we don't even notice. Which by and large helps produce a more stable society, which allows us to ignore whole categories of problems, which makes us more productive. Albeit with a greater potential for hidden costs and externalities.
(Cool! I think just argued myself into saying that assembly language is morally equivalent to clean energy and handmade craftsmanship, whilst Java and C# and all them fancy languages are outsourced jungle-destroying human-rights-abusing mass production!)
And sure, some of our stuff is Cheap Disposable Plastic Crap, but it usually performs the function it needs to for the time it was supposed to. There are almost always more expensive and better quality options out there, but instead of those being the only options, we also have the ability to get the particular subset of functionality that we want for a far lower price. (Which I suppose comes back to making the impossible possible.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
But the competition, along with technological innovation, is also generating incredible efficiency. Things that would have been literally impossible decades before are now commonplace. Prices may drift upwards, but in many areas, the raw power that we get for that price has increased vastly more. And so what I'd say is that the increased productivity has meant that it takes fewer people to make the "same things", which in turn means that the margins can be lower because they need to support fewer people. But that's all a big cycle, so I suppose you could also enter it at the point of lowered margins supporting fewer people, which in turn drives greater productivity through competition. And there's probably all sorts of potential substeps in there that I'm eliding. :)
There's also the invisible component of quality control; by some definitions we'd be much more "productive" if we spent less of our resources on making sure that stuff doesn't catch fire when plugged in, doesn't go bad in a day, doesn't choke babies, is accessible to handicapped people, and doesn't collapse in the next earthquake. But we've made a trade-off to spend more of our resources taking care of those things, and as a result there're often layers of quality surrounding us that we don't even notice. Which by and large helps produce a more stable society, which allows us to ignore whole categories of problems, which makes us more productive. Albeit with a greater potential for hidden costs and externalities.
(Cool! I think just argued myself into saying that assembly language is morally equivalent to clean energy and handmade craftsmanship, whilst Java and C# and all them fancy languages are outsourced jungle-destroying human-rights-abusing mass production!)
And sure, some of our stuff is Cheap Disposable Plastic Crap, but it usually performs the function it needs to for the time it was supposed to. There are almost always more expensive and better quality options out there, but instead of those being the only options, we also have the ability to get the particular subset of functionality that we want for a far lower price. (Which I suppose comes back to making the impossible possible.)