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.
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.
