EXACTLY! All the excitement over more and more automation means almost no one will have income to buy anything because almost everyone will be unemployed. So what is the use of producing goods and providing services then, even at lower cost? I don't know.

As for UBI, who is going to provide the money? I've never heard anyone talk about how that is supposed to work. YOUR comment is the first time I have ever heard, well, read, that point brought up. The government can't pay for UBI because there will no longer be a tax base of income earners due to lack of income. Companies can only contribute to the extent that they have customers. I suppose that a super-efficient, low labor economy could be almost entirely export-driven but that assumes the rest of the world isn't in the same situation.