I see your point, but as another person pointed out, machines take care of lots of things. Washer/dryers and dishwashers are already ubiquitous. I work in IT so I wear t-shirts and jeans directly from the dryer, no ironing or anything else. We also have robot vacuums that can even wipe the floors. We don't have a lawn yet, but when we do we will get a robotic mower as well. And having a person cleaning up I think would teach the wrong things to our kids.

As for flying somewhere, we usually spend our vacations flying back to our families, so maybe that counts?

I think once you hit 6 figures (in Europe at least) there's very little extra "happiness" from higher salaries.

Machines have handled some of that. A vacuum cleaner still takes time, but it's much faster than what came before, as with the washing machine...it's not really comparable to the situation a century ago. And you don't have to deal with random people having access to your house.

The lawn point is true, though the point of a lawn is kind of that it regenerates itself well, and unless you need something that you can run around on that repairs itself pretty quickly, you don't really need one. Also, in the US, grass lawns really a tradition inherited from England, where it makes a lot of sense in terms of climate...though in the US, some places are really not all that well-suited to it. In the Southwest in particular, even maintenance aside, it really makes more sense to do other forms of landscaping unless you really, seriously have use for a lawn. Though I guess it still can be helpful to have a gardener, even in much lower-maintenance stuff.

Flying costs something, but it's comparatively inexpensive these days compared to other forms of travel. I drove across the US a few years back when I had some free time -- admittedly, not trying to get across as quickly as possible -- and when you factor in hotel stays, fuel, and all that, even disregarding human time it's considerably cheaper to fly.

googles

Yeah, it's headed even further that way. Looks like I can fly from San Francisco to New York two weeks from now on Travelocity for $255 round-trip. The fuel alone for a car would run something like that.

That's not to say that there aren't luxuries out there to be had, just that I think that technology has helped spread out some past luxuries more-broadly.