Goods are usually (although not always) inferior when made by a machine. A hand-crafted solid wood table is still superior to something from Ikea.

Of course hand made tables are expensive. They service a sliver of the market. Ikea serves the rest of us who'd prefer not to eat off the floor.

Fundamentally, Luddites didn't like being replaced by a machine. They were skilled workers, who used to have very desirable skills. Most people didn't need their standard of quality (but customers had no choice.)

Their name is well known today because we never stopped replacing people with machines. Every industry as been "optimized" over and over again since the Luddite times.

AI is the first threat to the Artisans of today (ie programmers). We are just the most recent in a long history of Luddites.

In every change of this nature, some move on embracing the change, others do not. Some will find other jobs, possibly new jobs, others won't. Carriage drivers became Chauffeurs, some grooms became mechanics.

So sure, I'm a Luddite - I don't want to see my skills become cheap - but I'm also pragmatic. The change is here. I'd rather adapt than die.

And yet, clothes would have remained very expensive if we kept doing fabric by hand. Even destitute people in the poorest countries can have clothes these days, the meaning of “who wears the pants in this house” has lost its original (一条裤子) scarcity meaning.