[MattGaiser]

Arguably you could have more free time than ever before and maintain a similar standard of living to historical standards in many places, but that option isn’t popular.

Especially true of software engineers. Take a mediocre paying remote job at a mediocre non-tech firm, work 2 hours a day as the work is easy, and spend the rest on yourself.

But I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.

[Retric]

Individual people could in theory have more free time, but at scale our economy is dependent on people working long hours etc. Someone’s got to be awake at 3am for a hospital emergency room to function 24/7. Our convince often directly requires someone to suffer.