[majormajor]

I would say leisure was "for free" for humans too but was often traded for productivity for survival, which was more precarious.

I found the book Metropolis to be a good history of that in the form of "what did cities look like over the years" - cities were dirty, crowded, less healthy, etc, than a lot of alternative lifestyles but they also supplied the material essentials in predictable and more reliable ways.

If physical survival was easy to do leisurely then there wouldn't have been the motivation for more complex forms of society (many of which had very-unfun roles for many participants long before capitalism).

[dmn322]

"then there wouldn't have been the motivation for more complex forms of society" <-- not sure I agree with this one. I think the problem is less that physical survival is difficult to do leisurely and more that some people will keep trying to make it easier on themselves, even if that means making it harder on you. In a way that's the same things as what you're saying, but just a slightly different shade. It's not inherently difficult, but just inevitably becomes difficult.

Anyway, your mention of the motivation for more complex forms of society reminds me of this book which it seems like you might like. If you're vaguely interested but probably not going to read it I can summarize, but I don't want to spoil it if you think you'd read it: https://www.google.co.id/books/edition/The_Collapse_of_Compl...