What will be scarce? - by Alex Imas - Ghosts of Electricity
aleximas.substack.com · 5,459 words · saved by 18 readers
The economics of structural change and the post-commodity future of work
What will be scarce? The economics of structural change and the post-commodity future of work Alex Imas Apr 14, 2026 1,872 158 411 Share Starbucks is a huge company (market cap of $112 billion) that sells one of the most standardized products in the modern economy. Making a cup of coffee or even one of the fancy specialty drinks is very easy to mechanize and reproduce. If the entire economy is soon to be automated, with labor being replaced with increasingly more sophisticated capital, Starbucks should be a canary in the coal mine—the technology for removing labor from its stores and replacing
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