Because a segment of people think the hand made product is superior. So they purchase it. I never made the claim that machine made is superior to hand made. I made the claim that If machine made was superior then people won't employ others to make hand made things.

For a vast swath of products, machine made is often more superior. With AI, that swath becomes even larger.

>my point was the electorate aren't going to support e.g. Microsoft replacing every single worker in the US with a piece of code

The electorate is not clear about this. Morally it's a strange situation because free trade is a liberty that's part of the American Dream. If a machine can automate all jobs then it's a persons god given right to use that machine rather then pay someone to do the work. The implications of AI nor the morality of the change AI will bring is so muddy it can bring a democratic electorate into a deadlock via conflicts of interest and slow decision making.