They will start a clone economy on different planets. Remember when we were cloning shit in the 90s? That. If people won't make enough babies to continue to grow the population then they will take over.

It’s even better than that, because the massive inequality created by Capitalism has already got us to a state where the human population is going to collapse within the next few decades, even if climate change doesn’t do it first. Simply, most people never feel like they can afford to start a family during the years when they would have started one before. The oligarchs know this and are freaking out about birth rates now, but it’s already too late - can’t be King of the mountain if the mountain is only a hill.

Automation.

The end game is 1 person with all of it.

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Money won't be used anymore then.

They find something else, so that they can own you even better than with money.

For some time, science fiction thought that it's body parts: They own your body, and if you have too much debt, somebody takes a part of you, instead of money.

I hope that biotechnology will advance enough, so that synthetic parts will become available before that happens.

With AI and automation, I think the 1% will want less people (bugs) around them in a not so distant future. We might have they answer to this question soon enough. Spoilers : we lose.

I see it as a frenzy, like a mob trying to scoop up cash as fast as they can that was strewn across the highway by a wrecked security truck. No logic, no thought, just an addict without any controls.

It's like a Dark Souls game. Many of the bosses are tough, but the final boss is just some guy and is rather easy to cheese with parries. The mobs you have to fight to reach the final boss are harder than the boss itself.

For a while it will be that they only have almost all of the money; a small portion will have to go to the workers so that someone exists to run things like power plants and farms and mcdonalds and shit. But eventually robots will replace all that, or slavery

There are 3 key necessities for UBI/freedom dividends:

1. It redistributes power not wealth. Bad greed is oligarchy capturing your rulers. UBI weakens politicians discretion, because just paying everyone more cash instead of their corrupt ideas is "idiocracy proof". Power redistributed to workers where everyone who wants a job gets 5 recruiter calls per day offering a better job. We all get greater power to say no to anything. Quality of life becomes exceptional without crimes of desperation, and the divisive hate that is easily manufactured from crime.

2. Redistribution means massive economic growth and overall prosperity even as it all trickles up to make the rich richer. "Velocity of money" is the key economic concept, but as income trickles back up to workers and owners, it means that the rich have to invest more to take all of our money.

3. The alternative is genocide. Oligarchy having all of the money and power, and AI/robotics to do work, means robocop detroit for Americans, and war on rest of the world to take their land. It doesn't matter that far more wealth can be generated with more people to sell stuff to. The logic of pillaging America/world for oligarchs with ever decreasing tax rates on corporations and the rich means more relative wealth and power for the oligarchy and its political minions.

This 3rd point is similar to yours. Except its not just "This is America, if you don't make money you're a douchebag", and the rich just give up on life, it's "you need to be exterminated because you are useless to the rulership."

Everyone here has written echoes of the same viewpoint: the wealthy got too greedy and so now the whole world will die as they stand and watch.

While I understand the allure of such narratives that paint a world falling into pieces at the hands of the ultra-wealthy, I think it's worth exploring an alternate vision of late-stage capitalism. One where despite being grim, we avoid descending into a completely unrecognizable dystopia.

In this scenario, nearly the entire workforce is displaced by robotic and AI-driven automation, leading to a massive societal shift. With most traditional jobs gone, the public faces mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Outcry erupts as the majority falls below the poverty line. With nearly all jobs displaced, for most people only two options remain: attempt entrepreneurship or face unemployment.

Confronted with growing public unrest, governments reluctantly implement basic welfare measures such as small universal basic income or food stamps, providing just enough for people to get by. Meanwhile, the majority of global funding is redirected toward research and development, primarily powered by these new forms of automation. This fuels breakthroughs in production and technology, eventually driving down the cost of quality goods. Over time, even those relying on minimal welfare begin to see modest improvements in their quality of life.

Meanwhile, the wealth gap grows wider than ever. Billionaires, enriched by the automation economy, turn their attention to ambitious but arbitrary ventures like constructing moon bases, developing underwater cities, or investing in life-extension technologies. Occasionally, these projects destabilize society—whether through anti-competitive practices or efforts to sidestep government oversight—but as long as governments hold their ground (a non-trivial task), their effects on the majority remain limited.

What results is a fragile balance: a world with basic welfare programs supplying the masses, incremental technological progress, and a stark divide between the majority and the ultra-wealthy. It’s far from utopian, but it avoids outright collapse. As innovation continues, life gradually improves for everyone—even though the wealthiest always dictate the terms and reap the greatest rewards.

maybe something akin to hungergames to keep masses under control

Money isn't finite, that's why billionaires and soon trillionaires exist. They couldn't ( or literally had to be an emperor) when money had a closer relationship to reality or was gold. Anyways, because of the nature of our currency now, the size of their pile has zero effect on the size of your pile. "No new cars, no tech gadgets, no fancy dinners, no vacations, no disposable income." not how it works. If you add up the 20 richest Americans, you get close to 2.7 trillion, which is the estimated amount of physical cash in circulation. None this shit is real. American national debut is 36 trillion. Ever saw an actual cash shortage? Like not a personal one, the money not existing to complete a transaction, like not being able to move cash you hold to another person because of lack of availability of signifiers? Not a thing anymore.

If all the billionaires in the world instantaneously ceased to exist, and all their money were evenly distributed to everyone on earth, you would get a one time payment of about $1,769. Then what?