Labor is *usually*, but not *always* the number one expense for a company. When that changes, other things change, too.
I had the opportunity to work with a manufacturing organization whose primary expense was *materials*. They'd throw (cheap) *people* at an (expensive) *material* problem in a heart beat. It was awkward to them, having been trained that people were expensive, but that was the economics of it. They learned new techniques in a new economy.
I've been a computer professional for long enough that I've seen the expensive part of the system move from being the machine to being me. I used to hand check all my code many times before I'd invest expensive computer time to compile it. A couple 'o Moore's Law periods later, that economy no longer exixts -- I can have incremental, just-in-real-time compilers attached to my editor. All in service to the new expensive part of the system -- me.
It's all about the economics of the problem, and what things you tend to value in your economic trade-offs (money, nationalism, civil liberties, natural resources, time, relationships...) If money is the only input to the equation, you get a different balance point than if other metrics are valued.
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Labor is *usually*, but not *always* the number one expense for a company. When that changes, other things change, too.
I had the opportunity to work with a manufacturing organization whose primary expense was *materials*. They'd throw (cheap) *people* at an
(expensive) *material* problem in a heart beat. It was awkward to them, having been trained that people were expensive, but that was the economics of it. They learned new techniques in a new economy.
I've been a computer professional for long enough that I've seen the expensive part of the system move from being the machine to being me. I used to hand check all my code many times before I'd invest expensive computer time to compile it. A couple 'o Moore's Law periods later, that economy no longer exixts -- I can have incremental, just-in-real-time compilers attached to my editor. All in service to the new expensive part of the system -- me.
It's all about the economics of the problem, and what things you tend to value in your economic trade-offs (money, nationalism, civil liberties, natural resources, time, relationships...) If money is the only input to the equation, you get a different balance point than if other metrics are valued.